Alice's Jasper, Edward's Bella
by LyricalKris
Summary: Bella had lost everything, including her purpose in life. Jasper had lost everything, including his freedom. Prison is an unlikely place to find happiness again, but two broken souls will recognize each other in the most unexpected of places.
1. Chapter 1

**A/n: This was originally intended for the Cullens Incarcerated contest but after I was done with it I decided 3 months was just too long to wait. Patience is not so much my virtue, but you can check out that contest here: ****http://www . fanfiction . net/u/2163960**

**There is a small lemon in this fic.  
**

**Disclaimer: **I'm just borrowing Stephenie Meyer's beautiful creations.

Edward had told her that he wanted to take care of her. He had told her to to do whatever she dreamed about. She'd had the freedom to do anything. Write. Raise babies. Lounge around the heated, indoor swimming pool all day as if she was trophy wife material. If her dream had been to open an online knitting supply store, she could have done it.

He was gone, but the money remained. The time he had provided her was an emptiness she struggled to fill. Without him, her life had little meaning. She tried to work, but she couldn't concentrate. She fell into a natural pattern of making other people her purpose in life; making sure that their friends and his family had what they needed from her, because they could not give her what she needed. She needed Edward, plain and simple. She was a shell of a person, no longer complete. She could have had anything she wanted but it was the one thing she needed that she lost forever.

When her friends and family did not take up enough time she started to throw herself into charity work. Her life was over, though she continued to breathe. She had to bring some purpose to her existence, why not make other people's lives better? It's what she had always been good at - putting other people first.

She wasn't so sure about this one though.

Before, she probably wouldn't have hesitated. She had never believed in forgetting about a person's humanity, regardless of what they had done. She also knew the statistics, the probability of how many innocent people were in prison. Before, she wouldn't have thought twice about doing what she was doing now - bringing food and company to one of the incarcerated members of society. Bringing them a tiny slice of normality and human contact for a couple of hours.

She wondered, as she was led down the hall to the small visiting room, if she would be able to look at the inmate she was assigned and not see _him. _The one who took everything away from her was behind walls like these. If _he _was in prison, it stood to reason that people like him were there too, logically speaking. She didn't want to think about someone doing this for him. She didn't want to think about someone talking to him, granting him the gift of civilized conversation and a home cooked meal.

Yet there she was, about to grant this gift to someone just like him. She sat in one of the chairs at the one table in the room. There were armed guards at the door, but no one else. She wrung her hands distractedly, idly wondering what it would be like to view the world outside everyday and not be able to touch it, breathe it - be a part of it. She wondered what it would be like to do something bad enough that her freedom would be forfeited.

She wondered if it would be so much different from what her life had become.

The doors opened and her inmate was led in. For some reason, she was expecting orange jumpsuits. As it turned out, the prison's uniforms were blue.

Inmate 6261121. Jasper Whitlock.

He wasn't what she expected. He was muscular, but not obscenely or frighteningly so. Instead of the shaved head she had been picturing, he had long, scraggly, dirty blond hair. His glare was not malevolent; it was curiously dead. There were scars on his face and his arms. Parts of his exposed skin were blacked, seemingly randomly, with tattoos. He watched her as she looked him over, but she didn't feel threatened.

There was a time when the sight of him would have made her uncomfortable, made her afraid. She felt nothing. She wondered what the tattoos meant, if they meant anything, and how many more he had that were hidden from view. The thought was fleeting and she didn't honestly care. She was only relieved that Jasper didn't remind her of _him._

Her eyes returned to his. It was almost like looking in a mirror. Flat, lifeless brown irises to flat, lifeless blue.

He looked like he might have been beautiful once.

Jasper watched her in silence for many long minutes. He noticed that the silence didn't seem to bother her. It was refreshing. The men and women who came here with this purpose were usually extremely nervous or overly friendly - to prove they were not nervous. He understood their cause and a part of him vaguely appreciated the gesture, but often enough he just wished they would be quiet. He knew there wasn't a lot to talk about. He hadn't read any interesting books, he already had a degree and no desire to go after another, he had no interest in being saved as he was sure he lived damnation every day of his life since his Alice had been taken from him.

Alice had always known when he needed her to be silent.

Bella moved suddenly, reaching for the bags she'd brought. Finger foods, he noticed. Everything she'd brought was easy to eat without utensils, since they weren't allowed utensils during these visits. Quesadillas, with chicken and green chilies. Chips and salsa. Cookies for desert. Despite the emptiness inside of him, his body responded in Pavlovian style. His mouth watered. His taste buds would enjoy it.

"It looks delicious, ma'am. Thank you." His mother might have been proud that the manners she'd instilled in him still existed, even in this place, even after all he'd seen and done, except that no mother could be proud of him now.

"Bella," Bella said, her voice just as flat and perfunctory as his. "My name is Bella."

He nodded, taking a bite. As he suspected, his taste buds rejoiced. "Bella what?" he asked, wondering briefly why he was holding up his end of the conversation.

She looked up and, though he wouldn't have thought it was possible, the light in her eyes dimmed just a little bit more. "Cullen. Bella Cullen," she murmured, looking away from him. Her voice betrayed just a hint of the agony she was feeling.

Minute as it was, he still heard it. "I'm sorry," he said, a hint of softness in his normally harsh tone.

Minute as it was, she still heard it. "Thank you."

***

The charity group visited the prison again a month later. Bella specifically requested Jasper.

She heard the incessant babbling of another inmate before Jasper was led through the door. The other inmate called, "Have a good meal, Red," before he turned around and headed back the way he came. Jasper didn't acknowledge him. He looked just as lifeless and defeated as he had before, but when he looked up at her, surprise flitted across his face. It was only there for a split second and then the apathetic mask was back.

"Bella," he said in greeting. If she was surprised that he remembered her, she didn't show it.

"Jasper," she responded as she set a plate of chicken and corn on the cob in front of him. Brownie for desert.

There was no conversation for minutes while his taste buds luxuriated in the rarity of herbs and spices.

"Why did he call you Red?" Bella asked, her voice devoid of any real interest.

Jasper responded in kind. "It's from the Shawshank Redemption. Red is the narrator character. He's the only guilty man in Shawshank. The name doesn't fit though. Red regretted it. I don't."

She didn't know how to respond. Some part of her knew that she should have been repulsed. Instead, her heart gave a strange lurch. She reached out and touched his hand. He stared at the sight of her fingers over his. His skin registered that her skin was so soft. He hadn't felt soft in a long, long time.

***

Bella started visiting more than once a month - without her charity group. There was some strange kinship between them, though neither of them talked about it. They were both broken souls, somehow recognizing each other in the blackness their lives had become. Just sitting in silence together was a bright spot in their otherwise bleak lives.

Then, one not so special day, he told her the story of why he was the only guilty man in this prison. His voice betrayed almost no emotion as he spoke. He stared down at the table, not looking at Bella.

"Her name was Alice, and she was everything. My hopes. My dreams. Everything. And we had it all. Good jobs. Good friends. A future together. Plans.

"We had just walked out of a concert in Seattle. We'd parked far away and we cut through an alley to get back to the car quicker."

His fingers, that had been drawing restless circles on the table top, suddenly clenched into a fist. "There were five of them. They wanted money, but I didn't have enough. They wanted to take what they felt they were owed from Alice's body. I swore I wouldn't let them near her. I fought four of them, while one of them grabbed her and kept her from running."

Shame leaked into his voice as he continued his story. His shoulders slumped just a little more. "They were winning. Alice begged them to stop. Finally, she said she'd do anything. She wouldn't give them any trouble if they would just stop hurting me.

"They made me watch as they beat her and raped her and tortured her. Two or three of them held me, and they took turns with her. I was helpless to stop it.

"I screamed and cried and begged for her. I threatened them. I pleaded with them. She was just silent. She just...took it all so they wouldn't hurt me. Every vile thing they did to her, she just withstood it. For me." He raised his head but his eyes were closed.

"They must have gotten tired of my struggling because one of them hit me across the head and the next thing I knew, all I heard was her voice. Her sweet voice calling me back from the darkness. She sounded tired, like when she was calling me to come to bed and she was already almost asleep. When I opened my eyes, all I saw was her face. She was lying near me, reaching her hand toward me. Her face was all bloodied up, she was such a mess, but still the most beautiful thing I will ever see. She must have been in so much pain, but she smiled at me. She smiled and she said 'I love you, baby,' and her voice could have been the wind, it was so soft. Then, the light in her eyes faded, and her eyelids came down. Her breath stopped."

His voiced cracked on the last word, finally, and he started to cry. He didn't sob, or break down in her arms, he simply cried. His eyes were closed and new tears appeared in the corner of them to replace the drops that fell in a perfect line down each of his cheeks. She put her hand on his. He squeezed her slim fingers, acknowledging her attempt to comfort him. Surprisingly, he _was_ comforted. He hadn't told that story to anyone before.

When he was ready to speak again, he did. "I passed out again, and when I came to I was in the hospital, and Alice wasn't. I got to go home, and Alice didn't."

He finally looked at her, needing her to understand why he skipped ahead in his story. His eyes were calm and cold. "The police caught three of them and put them behind bars. I caught two of them. I made them beg, and cry, and scream before I made them die."

The room was silent after that. His eyes never left Bella's and she stared right back. Her eyes were wide and filled with compassion for his suffering, but there was no disgust, no horror. At least, not at him.

"You're not running," he said. It was not a question.

"No," Bella agreed.

"Why?"

She dropped her head so he couldn't see her eyes when she answered. "Because if they hadn't caught him first, I would have done the same thing."

The statement hung in the air like thick fog on the beach in the middle of the night. It didn't stop him cold, it just made it harder to see, and slightly more eerie. He reassessed this girl, this woman and tried to imagine her doing the things he had done. For a moment, he just couldn't. She looked vulnerable and small and he instinctively wanted to protect her. He couldn't imagine anyone being afraid of her, like the men he killed were afraid of him at the end. Then she looked up again and he could see it in her eyes: the coldness; the dangerous thirst that only blood could slake.

He'd known far too much darkness to be surprised.

"Tell me?" he requested, noticing with a far away feeling of shock that his voice was capable of being almost tender. He squeezed her hand, encouraging her.

Her voice betrayed every emotion as she spoke. She stared straight ahead, not seeing anything.

"His name was Edward, and he was my whole life. I didn't believe, before him, in soul mates. But when I was with him, it wasn't something I could deny. We were good together. We were right. And we had our whole lives ahead of us to figure each other out. We had a loving and supportive family. We had everything."

She had to laugh because the next part of her story could have come from any of the books that covered her bookshelf. Her laugh was raw; pained and bitter - lacking even an ounce of humor. "But there was another boy. We had been friends all of our lives. We were easy...expected. We were each other's first kisses, all of that. We were children - playing at love.

"When Edward came into my life he eclipsed everything. I had never known a love like that. I had never known anything close. What I had with... _him _turned out to be just a glimmer of what my life could be.

"Of course, he didn't understand. And he blamed Edward. He said he hated Edward because _he _loved me so much. I told him that Edward was a part of me, but it didn't matter. He tried to get him to fight, but Edward never would. I thought he gave up. If he couldn't be happy for me, and he couldn't be just friends, I wanted him to leave us alone. I thought he would."

Tears fell down her cheeks freely as she remembered. Like Jasper, she didn't sob or break down, she just cried.

"It was our wedding day. I'd fought Edward on the marriage issue for a long time, but it was important to him. It was a perfect summer wedding. The ceremony was beautiful. Dancing in his arms that night, surrounded by all our friends and family, I couldn't remember why I hadn't wanted it. I felt like I was in a fairy tale, and I would remain in the arms of my Prince, happily ever after.

"But then _he _showed up." She laughed again. A slightly maniacal laugh. She wished she could scoff. She wanted to roll her eyes at the banality of it all. That her life, Edward's death, had been a cliche sometimes felt like the worst injustice of all. "I could see the look in his eyes when he saw us together as husband and wife. I knew he was there for me. You know - if he couldn't have me, no one would, of course. I don't think I ever saw the gun, but I heard the gunshots. Everything happened so quickly. Edward pushed me out of the way, and the bullets hit him. All three of them.

"_He _ran off, they told me later. All I really remember, after hearing the gunshots, is holding Edward in my arms. There was so much blood...all over my wedding dress. My hands. Soaking Edward's shirt and staining his skin. I was trying to keep the blood in him. Even though he was struggling for every breath, he said, 'Look at me' I looked at him, and he said, 'I love you.' It must have taken every last bit of strength he had, but he put his hand on my cheek and he whispered, 'Be happy'. Then his hand fell down by his side, and he died in my arms." Her voice was no more than a whisper.

"For weeks after his funeral, I just waited for my heart to succumb to the pain. It was unfathomable that I would survive it. I was sure that I would die without him. Obviously, I was wrong. My heart kept beating, and I kept breathing."

Bella finally looked up at Jasper, and for once he was not wearing the hard mask that he had hidden behind for so long. His eyes were sad. He felt a sense of awe that she was brave enough to put words to the state of being they shared. Hesitantly, he reached up, cupping her face in his hands, and wiped her tears away with his thumbs. Her eyes never left his as she finished her story. "The ironic thing is that, for all _he _talked about love, it was him who taught me how to hate. I don't feel any semblance of humanity when I think about him. Just knowing that he's still breathing, when Edward never will again...if I had found him before they did, he would be dead. And it would have been as painful as I could manage."

For a long time, they stared at each other, finally seeing each other in full. Silent communication passed between them. There was a comfort inherent in the understanding of each other. No one else in the world knew the things that they knew, and they were no longer alone in their suffering. Certainly, there were people out there who knew Alice's Jasper; the man that he had been in his previous life. Certainly, the people in Bella's life - her friends and family; Edward's family - thought that she was still Edward's Bella. Only she, and now Jasper, knew that wasn't the case. She wasn't anyone anymore.

Bella stood and moved to the chair nearest to him. They were oblivious to the guards who watched them with incredulity. They were sitting close enough together that Jasper could lean forward to place a kiss on her forehead. His lips lingered there for a long moment before he kissed her cheeks, tasting the remnants of her tears. Feeling the softness of her skin beneath his lips, Jasper began to remember what it felt like to be human - before all of his thoughts were dominated by blood lust for the ones who took Alice's life; before he shut off every emotion and became the cold, empty shell that had occupied a cell in this prison for more time than he wanted to remember.

She tilted her face up to press a kiss against his chin and then she looked at him. The look was at once inviting and pleading. All she knew was that, with Jasper, she felt more than numbness. Before, looking out at a long life of emptiness had been overwhelming. She was beginning to feel that her life could be something rather than nothing. It was terrifying to feel anything again, but she comforted herself with the fact that she had already lived through the worst thing possible. She knew what she wanted.

He kissed her for the first time and it didn't feel like cheating. He was not Alice's Jasper anymore. He was not the man that once strummed a guitar on a warm summer day, serenading Alice with sweet love songs. He was not the man who had moved inside that flawless creature and known completeness. He was not the man who pondered for weeks the perfect way to ask her to be his forever, only to blurt it out when they ate at the diner where they'd met. Alice would not recognize the man he has become - scarred, and inked, and capable of the atrocities he committed. Alice's Jasper would never hurt a soul. Alice's Jasper had turned the other cheek whenever he had been presented with a fight. Alice's Jasper died in the filthy alley when she had uttered her last words and closed her eyes to sleep for the last time.

She waited for the guilt, but it didn't come. She waited for her heart to remind her of Edward; to steal any joyful reaction with the haunting memories of Edward's lips pressed against hers. Edward's Bella would have blushed and grinned, like she did after their first kiss. That girl had been silenced forever as Edward's blood crept across her white wedding dress. Yes, she had friends and family who thought Edward's Bella still existed, but in reality they loved the girl she had been; the girl she could never be again. If it would have helped she would have put herself in the coffin alongside Edward so they could have mourned them both. But it wouldn't have helped because her heart still beat and she still looked like that girl. They wanted to hold on to her and love her because she was all they had left of their son, their brother, their friend.

This kiss was not like their other first kisses. There was no giddiness, or incredulity. There was a spark though. The fire and life that they had once possessed, that they had thought had died completely, snapped back into existence. It was a low flame, but it was there. Bella opened her mouth to Jasper and he slowly began to explore her tongue with his own as their lips moved together. The spark grew stronger.

When they broke to breathe the fire was noticeable in their eyes. Once flat, lifeless brown and blue irises gained depth and clarity. It wasn't complete, but it was a start. Where there had been nothing, there was now something.

***

It was only a matter of time before Bella's father found out about Jasper. He was in local law enforcement and gossip spread amongst the force faster than even the most experienced of nosy old ladies could move. By then she had hired the best lawyer in the entire region to get Jasper released. Charlie brought out the big guns when he confronted her about it.

When she stepped into the Cullen house for one of their frequent get-togethers, it was immediately obvious that they knew. Edward's mother Esme's eyes were red from crying. His father Carlisle, and her father looked grave. Sue, Charlie's wife, was looking at her with a harsh expression as she held Charlie's hand in support. Even Emmett, Edward's perpetually cheerful brother, was frowning. Emmett's wife Rosalie was the only one not looking at her.

The argument started right away, any thoughts of dinner completely forgotten. They were concerned and incredulous. Bella was defensive and frustrated.

"Bells, I pulled his file," Charlie said. "If you knew the things he did to those men..."

"Pull Alice Whitlock's file," Bella responded, wiping at furious tears. "Read it and imagine that they held you down and made you watch as they did _that _to Sue, or to me.

"I'm not telling you it was right. I'm just telling you that I understand. I understand him, and he understands me." She ran her hands through her hair in utter frustration. She knew what it sounded like and she knew what they saw. They saw her as a naive girl being suckered into something by a criminal. It drove her mad that she didn't have the words to explain what he was to her, what he meant to her.

"Bella..." Emmett said, his eyes wide and horrified. "Do you ... like this ... guy?"

The words slipped out of her mouth before she had a chance to think about them. "I love him."

The truth of those words shocked everyone in the room, Bella included.

"Are you insane?" Emmett shouted.

"You wanted me to move on," Bella retorted, not backing down from her admission.

"Of course, we've all been worried about you. But this, Bella?" Carlisle asked. His green eyes looked so much like Edward's; always concerned for her. "Edward worked so hard to make sure you were protected, that you were always safe. And you're throwing that away, using Edward's money on a convicted murderer?"

There wasn't any judgment in Carlisle's tone. He seemed to be trying desperately to understand what had happened to his normally logical daughter-in-law. Knowing that, Bella was able to force herself to take a deep breath so that she could speak calmly. "Edward wanted me to be happy. You know that's all he ever wanted. I haven't been happy in a long time. Jasper makes me happy."

They couldn't deny the change they had all observed in her. Since she had met Jasper, she had started smiling and laughing again. She carried herself a little straighter; her shoulders no longer slumped like she would fold in on herself if she could. But knowing the cause of this change in her, they wondered what the price her new found happiness came at.

"Come with me," she pleaded with all of them. "Meet him. I'm not going to change my mind about him no matter what you say, but maybe if you meet him, you'll see. He's worth it."

They'd hesitantly agreed.

The first of the family to visit were Emmett and Rosalie. Everyone was surprised when Rosalie voiced her approval almost instantly. Having survived a gang rape, Rosalie understood what Jasper did all too well. Emmett, too, came around quickly. Rosalie's support went a long way in his book and Jasper was both not intimidated by Emmett and not defensive at Emmett's blunt attitude.

Slowly, Jasper and Bella gained the support of her family; Edward's family. It was Jasper's earnest, polite demeanor that won Carlisle over. His spotless record before and after the murders he committed brought Charlie around and collaborated Bella's version of events. If he had not demonstrated exemplary behavior, he would not have been allowed these types of visits at all.

Esme was the last to come around. For a long time, all she could see was that Jasper wasn't worthy to stand in her son's place at Bella's side. He admited to being a murderer and that alone made him not good enough for the woman her son had loved with everything he was.

As the rest of her family gave their blessings, Esme couldn't help but be affected by their observations of Jasper. He was only ever gentle, kind and loving with Bella. He never lied, no matter how harsh the questions they asked him got. He spoke to all of them with respect even when they offered him none in return.

When Esme buckled, her support was total. She started to go with Bella to talk to the lawyers and to file the paperwork that needed to be filed. She took to visiting Jasper frequently, and when she saw him she always hugged him as if he were her own.

Having a family again was just one more gift Bella's presence in his life had granted him. It was another piece of himself that he had thought he'd lost forever.

***  
When he was led into the visiting room one day, he could see instantly that Bella was nervous. Her moods and expressions had long become recognizable to him. She was twirling a long tendril of hair between her fingers restlessly, but when she saw him her face still lit up like it always did. He opened his arms and she fell into them easily. He ran his nose along the side of her jaw. He had noticed that he never breathed as easily as when she was here with him.

"What is it?" he asked finally, holding her at arms length.

Her eyes darted away from him and Jasper frowned. She sighed and sat in one of the chairs. He sat next to her and waited for her to find the words she needed. Finally, she spoke. "The lawyer suggested...," she tried. She sighed again in frustration. She finally blurted everything out in a rush. "She suggested that we get married." Speaking in a rush, Bella relayed the conversation she had with the lawyer that morning. The lawyer had said, if they were amenable, a marriage always put a human face on the accused. Statistically speaking, husbands with Jasper's clean record were granted more leniency.

Jasper was quiet as she spoke, making her more nervous. "Jasper, please," she begged when he didn't respond immediately. "Say something."

Instead of speaking he pushed off the chair, kneeling in front of her. He grabbed her hands from where they rested on her lap, in both of his. "Bella, when I think about the rest of my life, I can't imagine it without you in it. My world, without you, is gray and lifeless. I do want to marry you, but not to better my chances, or play by statistics and probability. I want to marry you because I love you. When I marry you, I want it to be permanent, and only because you want to. If you ever want to."

She looked down at him with tears brimming in her eyes, an emotion so pure building in her chest that she thought her heart would explode. If there was one thing that Edward's Bella taught her it was not to fear marriage, when she knew it was right. "I do want to," she whispered, squeezing his hands tightly.

"Are you saying yes?" he asked, the wide smile she'd begun to coax out of him more and more beginning to blossom on his face.

She nodded, wiping away the tears that threatened to overflow so that she could see his beautiful smile.

His grin was huge and full of teeth. Letting out a whoop that startled the guards, he rose, grabbing Bella up into his arms and spinning her around. When he set her down he kissed her - his mouth fervent and feverish against hers, his hands on her back, pulling her closer to him.

When they opened their eyes again the spark that had ignited in them after their first kiss glowed with the strength of a forest fire.

***  
Their wedding took place a couple of short weeks later. It was no fancy affair, like both of their first weddings had been. It was just them, an officiant, a few official documents and one of the guards as a witness. They glanced at each other, grinning and giggling like shy teenagers as they signed the paperwork that bound them officially.

Jasper's good behavior had earned him the right to use one of the conjugal visit cabins on the prison grounds. The special occasion of his wedding granted them the entire day instead of the typical few hours.

Away from the prying eyes of the guards from the first time, they basked in each other, just enjoying being able to kiss without an often judgmental audience. Jasper found out qickly that Bella was a lot more vocal in private.

At first, they went slowly.

Bella tugged at Jasper's shirt. She wanted to see his bare chest. She wanted to satisfy her long held curiosity that his tattoos continued past his arms. He moved his hands from her waist to take his shirt off. The sight of him was stunning. His body was toned and sculpted. His skin, as she had suspected, was littered with ink. There was one long, jagged scar running along his right side.

She touched the scar first, curious. He opened his mouth to tell her the story but she placed a finger over his lips. "Later," she said, and she knew it was a promise. She would know all of his stories. She would know every scar. She pressed her lips against the scar, kissing his body as his hands rested on her shoulders. She kissed the tattoo over his heart, the ones on each of his shoulders, and the one near his belly. Each kiss was a promise that she would know the story behind all of them someday.

Needing to see her, Jasper brought her face back up to his. He kissed her deeply as he pushed her gently back on the cabin's little bed. His lips never left hers as his fingers began to work the buttons of her shirt. Finished with that task, their hands explored exposed skin as their kisses became more urgent. Jasper's touch was so light across the skin of her belly that Bella laughed softly against his lips. He loved that her skin was so silky under the pads of his fingers. He loved the delicate whimper his touch elicited as he cupped her breast through the gauzy bra she was wearing. His thumb brushed across her nipple as it strained against the thin material. He was pleased when his fingers encountered a front clasp to the bra, and smug that he still remembered how to unclasp it with one hand.

He finally broke their kiss to look at her. Her eyes were hooded with lust; her hair splayed, dark and wild on the pillow. She was biting her lower lip and, for reasons he couldn't figure out, he found the sight incredibly erotic. Her breasts were full and her nipples were hard, as if they were just calling for him to put his mouth on them. He managed to wait long enough to get her shirt and bra all the way off before he did just that. The loud moan Bella released as his tongue swirled over her peaks went straight through him, directly to his groin. Her body arched up to press against his.

And then he couldn't go slowly anymore.

He wanted to do everything to her all at once. He wanted to feel her everywhere, but first he needed to get the rest of her clothes off. His fingers fumbled at the buttons of her jeans as his mouth moved hungrily across her collarbone, up to her neck. Picking up on his urgency, Bella moved his hands from where they were tangled in his hair to his waist. She started to tug his pants down and, when she couldn't reach with her fingers anymore, she brought her feet up to push them down his legs. Jasper caught her ankles around his waist, using her new position to pull her jeans and panties all the way off.

"You are so beautiful," he murmured. Their eyes traveled each other's bodies, drinking each other in like they had been walking through a desert without water. Really, it was not far from the truth. They had been lost in the abyss of nothingness for so long. Now they both felt alive again. They had found a reason to live again in the most unlikely of places. There, in a small bed on the grounds of a prison, they let love and desire consume them.

He forced himself to go slowly again, to savor rather than devour, as he eased into her for the first time. She was tight, hot and oh, so good. "Are you alright?" he asked tenderly, knowing it had been too long for both of them and she was biting down on her lip again.

She kissed him reassuringly. "Make me yours, Jasper," she whispered against his lips. She raised her legs, wrapping them around his waist so she could take him in deeper.

He didn't need anymore encouragement than that. He began to move inside her and her hips raised to meet his. Their rhythm wasn't slow and steady for long. Every moan and titillating noise they made increased their need for each other. Soon, all Jasper could hear was Bella's panting close to his ear. All Bella could feel was his body pressed against hers, slick with a sheen of sweat.

Somewhere, in the haze of ecstasy and the amazing feeling of the way their bodies mingled together, it occurred to Jasper that he was making love to his beautiful wife. He had thought he would never have that again. The enormity, and overwhelming satisfaction of this one fact pulled him over the threshold. He thrust into her once more, hard enough that his name fell from her lips in a gasp of pleasure. His orgasm was powerful, wracking his whole body with the intensity of it. His hands grasped the pillow beside her head as he rode it out.

"My god," he said between gasps, trying to catch his breath. He laid down carefully beside her, their lower bodies still tangled together, their faces close on the pillow. "I'm sorry."

Perplexed, Bella brushed a strand of damp hair off his temple. "What on earth are you sorry about?"

"I just.... It's been a long time. And then I realized that you're mine and...," he broke out grin as huge as the harvest moon. "I love that you're my wife, Bella. I love you."

She laughed lightly, not laughing at him, but laughing in complete adoration of him. "I love you, my husband," she said, pressing fluttering kisses across his brow, on his nose, on his cheeks. "And don't worry, you have all day to make it up to me." She captured his lips with her own.

"Mmm," he mumbled between kisses. Sliding one arm beneath her shoulders, he pulled her to him, his free hand ghosting down her thighs to find her center. She gasped when his fingers entered her, his thumb finding her clit and rubbing in slow, teasing circles. "All day."

Listening to the sensual sounds she made for him, because of him, Jasper was hard again within minutes. He dreamed of the day when he could come home to this, to her, for good.

***

Time passed in a flurry of lawyers, court dates and too quick conjugal visits. It was a combination of the Cullen's influence, Bella's money, and Jasper's good behavior that reduced his sentence to time served.

"What do you want to do when you get out?" Bella asked, lying in his arms on the last afternoon of their last conjugal visit.

He smiled, looking over at what was left of the homemade pizza she made him. "I want to cook you dinner," he responded.

It was such a normal response that they both had to laugh. It was surreal to think that their lives, by the next day, would be so mundane, so ordinary, when all they had known was unconventional to say the least.

The next day, his first day as a free man, the first thing Jasper did was take a shower. He stood under the spray in the middle of the afternoon, at nobody's direction, with no time limit hanging over his head. His skin turned pink under the scalding hot water, and then pruned, but Jasper didn't move until the spray ran cold.

Afterward, he stood in front of the bathroom mirror, braced with his hands on the sink, and stared at his reflection. That was how Bella found him. In the soft light, his damp, blond hair looked almost black. Her eyes raked down his form, taking in the muscular curves of his back and the way the towel wrapped around him, hanging low on his hips. He was breathtaking, but it was the somewhat lost expression on his face as he stared at his reflection that caused Bella's breath to catch in her throat. He didn't move as she walked to him, but his eyes closed as she wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his bare back. "What's wrong?"

He sighed and turned in her embrace, wrapping his arms around her tightly and leaning his forehead against hers. "Not a damn thing. And that's...a little terrifying. You know?"

"I do," she said. "We're going to be okay."

He smiled. "I know," he murmured before he kissed her. He was surprised to find that he felt this truth at the core of his being. He could see it in her eyes and he could hear it in the certainty of her tone that she felt the same way. The emptiness that had once consumed them both was hardly more than a memory. Their psyches would always carry the the scars, but the wounds no longer ached.

That their souls belonged to others was understood by them both. It was a twist of fate that their hearts had shattered in corresponding pieces and they fit together naturally. They never forgot their perfect others, nor did they use each other as replacements. When Jasper made love to Bella, she never compared him to Edward any more than he compared her to Alice. They never called out the wrong name or used each other to forget what they had lost. Bella didn't feel the same as Alice had. She didn't fit against his body as if she had been carved from his own flesh. Jasper didn't move the same way Edward had inside her. He didn't know, instinctively, what she needed most and when as Edward had. But their lovemaking was good, and it was right. It was sweet and passionate and theirs, with no hint of what they had once shared with other people.

They began to rebuild their lives together. Edward and Bella had frequented bookstores and music stores. Jasper and Alice had frequented malls and boutiques. Together, Jasper and Bella discovered that they liked antique stores and shopping for everything else online. Edward and Bella spoke of visiting England - the birthplace of so many of the books and plays they could talk about for hours. Jasper and Alice had planned a trip to France to satisfy Jasper's love of history and Alice's romantic notions of the Eiffel Tower. Jasper and Bella traveled first to Greece - home of comedy, tragedy and philosophy. They were reinventing themselves in this new life they had found with each other.

Of course, they had their off days.

It always happened without warning. There would be some stray item, a moment on a television show, a song on the radio. Sometimes the thoughts came from no where at all. When they hit, they were powerful and crushing and consuming.

Some days, Bella remembered exactly how his voice sounded in her ear; smooth, velvet and inviting. She remembered exactly how his voice wrapped around her name like a caress. She remembered how it felt to be wrapped in his strong arms as if she had been a part of him forever. She remembered how it felt to love him and be loved by him. Remembering everything, the pain of losing him was fresh, and consumed her again.

Invariably, when this happened, Jasper always scooped her up into his arms. He carried her to their bed and laid down behind her, wrapping his arms around her tightly and pressing his body against her back. He let her cry, or talk - whatever she needed. He stroked her hair and told her over and over that he was there and it would be okay, until, finally, Edward's ghost loosened its hold on her and she only felt the comfort of Jasper's embrace.

Some days, Jasper remembered the sound of Alice's tinkling laughter. He remembered her mischievous smirk as she plotted. Alice was always cooking up some scheme, whether it was playing matchmaker with a co-worker, or figuring out how to charm the shops she frequented into giving her a discount. He remembered being constantly in awe of her. He remembered feeling insanely lucky that this amazing woman belonged to him, that she looked on him with those sparking eyes, so full of love. He remembered and he could feel the emptiness threaten again. He could feel the bleak reality that he would wake every day for the rest of his life to an Alice-less world.

When this happened Bella never said a word. She knew that he prefered silence; that he couldn't talk about it, about Alice in those moments. Instead, she merely climbed into his lap, and guided his head onto her shoulder. The feel of her in his arms anchored him. He remembered that his life now came with the promise of Bella. She was his brightness. She was his present and his future.

It was a good future. It was not long after Jasper's release that Bella's body began to swell with new life she and Jasper created. They sat together on their bed, Jasper lounging against the headboard, entirely content with his life, and Bella between his legs, leaning back against him with a wondering smile. Their hands were splayed against the supple bulge of her belly.

"Jasper?" she asked into the easy silence.

"Hmm?" he answered, feeling his son kick his hand from inside Bella. The thought of being a father had left him with a permanent smile.

"What do you think about Masen Brandon?" she asked hesitantly.

His breath caught in his throat. Masen was Edward's middle name, and Brandon was Alice's maiden name. "Masen Brandon Whitlock," he tried the name on for size. "It's perfect, Bella."

Beneath their hands their son kicked again. Bella tilted her head to smile up at Jasper. "He likes it."

They both knew exactly how lucky they were, to have gone through what they did and to end up together. Edward's Bella and Alice's Jasper had perished in a violent hell-storm of pain so powerful that it burned like fire and reduced their lives to ash. In finding each other, they had risen and rebuilt their lives, stronger together than they ever would have been apart. Bella's Jasper and Jasper's Bella found that their lives were wonderful. They had friends and family. They had each other. They felt cheated of nothing.

**Dedication: To CellaCullen and DizzyGrl28. You ladies inspire me and encourage me in ways you cannot comprehend, and I love you. Really. And to Bella's Understudy. I know you said I made you cry but you made me cry with your observations and your praise. Much 3!**

**Um – let me know what you think, yea? Tell you what - you review, and I'll post a light hearted, completely gratuitous smut nugget outtake as a second chapter to this story. I wrote it for Cella and Melly, but I'll share it with you if you share me your thoughts - good, bad, indifferent, I want to know.  
**


	2. Smut Nugget Outtake

**Posted with permission from my beautiful gals Cella and Melly. I wrote this for them because they deal with my insanity on a daily basis. It's just a smut nugget – pure, unadulterated J/B fun.**

**Disclaimer: These are Stephenie's characters, not mine, though I do love them so.**

When she woke up that morning, she was alone. Bella blinked, trying to clear the haze of sleep from her mind. She wasn't used to opening her eyes and not finding Jasper's familiar form beside her anymore. She pouted slightly at the sight of the tangled blankets and sheets on his side of the bed, her sleep addled mind not quite comprehending where he had gone.

Then she heard water running in the bathroom and logic caught up with her. He wasn't missing, he was just temporarily relocated. She shifted, turning in bed to lie on her belly, facing the bathroom door. Feeling the chilly air of the morning on her bare back, she pulled the covers up.

When he finally came through the bathroom door she played possum, closing her eyes and pretending she was still asleep. She heard the soft rustle as he walked into the room, and then the sound of him tinkering with something. She opened her eyes cautiously, finding him at their dresser, with his back to her.

Moments like these were some of her favorite moments in their life together; those moments when she could just look at him, observe him.

He was truly a stunning creature.

She glanced first at the mirror on top of the dresser, making sure that he wasn't looking up. His eyes were cast downward and he looked to be concentrating at whatever he was looking at on the dresser. Satisfied that his attention was elsewhere, Bella went ahead and ogled.

The skin of his back is unmarked by tattoos, though it is littered with a half dozen scars of varying lengths. Instead of deforming his body, the scars, to Bella at least, added a kind of allure. It wasn't just that they made him look rugged and sexy, though that was certainly true, they were also the physical manifestation of a journey that had made him the person he was today; the person she was in love with. Her Jasper. Her life.

She let her eyes travel downward. He had been naked when she fell asleep last night, of that she was positive. He must have put on the thin, beige pajama pants when he went to the bathroom. Bella decided she liked that color on him. She also liked the way they hugged his tight ass.

Her husband had an amazing ass.

"You see something you like, Mrs. Whitlock?"

Her eyes darted up and met his in the mirror. He was staring at her, smirking with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

Oh, he wanted to play, did he?

"Not a thing," she said innocently, burying her face in her pillow with an unconcerned yawn. She laid there for a moment with her eyes closed, as if she was only interested in going back to sleep. She wrapped her arms around her pillow, settling in with a satisfied sigh.

The silence stretched on for two full minutes before she opened her eyes again.

He wasn't at the dresser any longer.

Bella furrowed her eyebrows, confused. She propped herself up on one arm to find him again. A hand on her bare shoulder pushed her back down, harder than gently but not even close to roughly. She gasped, her heart racing before her brain caught up with her. She heard Jasper's deep chuckle from somewhere close by.

The bed dipped slightly under his weight as he knelt beside her. "Stay still, little girl," he commanded, mock seriously.

She stifled a chuckle against the soft cotton of her pillow case. "Do what you must," she said disinterestedly. "Just try not to wake me." She heard him chuff and was more than a little smug that she had shaken his cocky exterior.

Then the blankets that covered most of her body were suddenly yanked off.

"Hey!" she protested, propping herself up again. Again, he pushed her back down playfully. "Give those back. It's cold. And I'm naked."

"Just because you didn't see anything you liked doesn't mean I don't see anything I like. Your nudity is conducive to my viewing pleasure," he explained as his fingers began to trace mindless patterns across her exposed back.

Bella shivered at his touch. "And the cold?" she demanded.

He leaned over her, his chest pressed lightly against her upper back as he swept her hair off one shoulder. "I'm working on that," he said against her ear. She shivered again as he trailed his fingers down the curves of her body. As he teased her with his touch, he kissed the shell of her ear, and then the skin of her neck. She sighed in deep satisfaction.

His lips moved down to press kisses and light nips along her shoulders while his fingers ghosted along the small of her back. He rested his hand there, right above her ass, grinning against her skin as his hand moved with her unsteady breathing. She was trying not to make any noises to show she was unaffected by him but between her erratic breathing and the fact that he could see she was biting her lip in excitement, she was failing miserably.

Jasper shifted, using his legs to push her legs apart slightly. He moved his hand to caress her ass as he continued to press kisses across her back and shoulders. Unseen by him, below the pillow, her hands grasped the sheets of their bed. She reveled in the pleasurable sensations coursing through her body.

His fingers slid over her ass and then between her legs. She finally let out a shuddering breath as ran the pads of his fingers over her sex. He chuckled against her skin. "My, my," he teased. "For someone as uninterested as you are pretending to be, you're very aroused, Darlin'."

"Jasper," she moaned into the pillow as his fingers found her swollen clit. "You're driving me crazy."

Jasper had always been extremely talented with his fingers. That fact, coupled with the sensation of his lips, his teeth, and the two days growth of stubble on his chin, moving over her neck, and her shoulders and her back, had Bella writhing and whimpering beneath him in minutes.

"Oh god, Jasper," Bella moaned breathily.

He loved seeing her like this: raw and passionate and completely undone. He bit down on her shoulder slightly and she moaned again, almost a scream. "Are you gonna come for me, baby?" he asked huskily against her skin.

Momentarily beyond words, Bella nodded frantically against the pillow. She reached one arm back to run through his hair, tugging at it as her pleasure built. "Oh, god, please."

Her orgasm hit her so powerfully that her back arched straight off the bed and she cried his name.

Jasper untangled his legs from hers, lying on his side and working through the tangles in her hair with gentle fingers. When she had caught her breath again she rolled over and pulled his face down to hers.

"Warm now?" he asked between hungry kisses.

She didn't answer him, at first, far too interested in kissing him until they were both breathless. "Why are you so good to me?" she asked, nuzzling his neck with her nose.

"Believe me, Bella that was as much for me as it was for you." He took one hand and moved it to press against the bulge of his erection as it strained against his pants. "You see? I enjoyed that quite thoroughly."

"Mmm," she murmured, rubbing her hand over his covered cock. "I don't think you enjoyed it as much as I did." She muffled his low moan with her lips as she went back to kissing him.

Not moving her mouth from his, Bella pushed his shoulder. He took her direction well and moved back. She moved with him so she could continue kissing him. In this fashion, she guided him, their kisses never ceasing, until he was lying on his back and it was her on her side, leaning over him. Her hand tugged at the waist band of his pajama pants urgently. "Off!" she demanded.

"Yes ma'am," he laughed, jerking his pants down his legs and off as quickly as possible.

"Thank you," she said sweetly. She kissed the tip of his nose and then sat up, immediately moving to straddle him.

Jasper hissed as her slick, hot pussy came in contact with his newly freed erection. "Eager, are we?"

She slid herself slowly along his length so that he was pressed against her folds. "Someone got me all worked up." She smiled down on him devilishly as she continued to gyrate over him achingly slowly. "But I'm over it now."

"I'd say you're definitely over it," Jasper rasped. He bucked once against her and swallowed hard, realizing she was endeavoring to drive him as crazy as he'd driven her.

It was working.

"You're a naughty girl," he said seductively, his fingers digging into her sides slightly as he placed his hands on her hips. "Does your husband know how bad you are?" His tough bravado faltered at the end when his voice became strangled.

Bella snickered, pleased with herself for cracking his smooth exterior. "I won't tell if you won't."

His slid his hands up to her breasts. His fingers teased her for a moment before he took her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers and pinched them. She gasped and thrust hard against him with her hips. They both moaned.

"Bella," Jasper said, his voice throaty, "I want you. Now."

Needing to feel him inside her, Bella decided she was done with her attempt to torment him. She lifted herself off of him and then lowered herself down his length.

"Fuck, that's good," he growled. He slid his hands down to her hips again, holding her still. As it was, between watching her come undone and her little games, he wasn't going to be able to last long at all. This was unacceptable to him as he had been cheated of watching her face when she came earlier.

When he'd calmed slightly, he moved his hands back up to her breasts. She took that as a green light and began to ride him, arching her back to push her chest into his hands encouragingly. Her hands rested on his toned abs, tracing idle circles there with her thumbs as she moved.

They were mostly silent as their hips danced. The quiet of the neighborhood in the early morning made it easy to feel like there was no one else in the world beside the two of them. Their fervor for each other changed from passionate lust to a passionate intensity as their eyes connected. Instead of devouring each other in the hunger they felt for each others bodies, their hands now moved over each other reverently. Their eyes did not wander or close, connecting them emotionally even as they were connected physically. They stared at each other openly, with soft smiles playing on their lips.

Jasper's heart filled with a tenderness that consumed him. He cupped her cheeks, feeling the warmth of her flushed face beneath his palms. He moved his hands down her heck, to her shoulders, and then back to her breasts. He rolled her nipples between his fingers, tugging gently and enjoying the way she bit down on her lip, and the noises she made at the back of her throat.

He let her set their rhythm, thrusting up into her at the pace she moved up and down on him.

Keeping one hand at her chest, Jasper let the other drift down to her clit. He began to stroke her in time with their movements. "Fuck," he couldn't help but swear as he felt the walls of her pussy tighten around his cock. "Bella, Darlin' you feel so fucking good."

Her pace became frenzied as his fingers circled her clit harder. She threw her head back, tossing her hair over one shoulder. "I want you to come with me, baby. Will you come with me?" he begged her, too close to his threshold to hold back any longer.

"Jasper, yes," was all she could manage.

They came together, each of them crying out loudly. Bella chanted Jasper's name in a whisper as she came down from her climax.

She collapsed against him, utterly spent. He could feel her body trembling, and he stroked the damp skin of her back as she lay in his arms.

"Why are you so good to me baby?" he echoed her words from earlier.

She laughed and kissed his forehead. "Hmmm. That's a good question. It might be pity."

"Is that a fact?" he said, smirking at her.

She smiled and slid down his body until she was resting with her head on his chest. "That could be it, but it's probably because I love you."

He tightened his arms around her. "I love you too, Bella. So much," he murmured against her hair, pressing a lingering kiss to the top of her head.

He reached down to where he had tossed the sheets and blankets of their bed and brought them up to cover her shoulders. "Sleep in?" he asked into her hair.

"Definitely," Bella laughed, nestling against him contentedly.

With those words, Jasper and Bella fell back asleep, wrapped completely around each other.

**So – here's the thing. I have a sort of…O/s of this 1.5/s. I feel kind of weird about posting it, but people who have read what I have thusly think it's worthy of posting. Does that sound weird to you? Posting a O/s of a O/s?? **


	3. First Christmas

**A/N: A Merry Christmas for Cella who badgered me until I got a plot bunny that begged to be written. This is Masen's first Christmas, but it's not really about him. Incidentally, in my head it's also the first Christmas Jasper spends with the Cullens – he and Bella having been otherwise occupied last Christmas. **

**No lemons, alas. **

Bella woke to hear her husband's murmuring voice. She blinked, a little confused. The room was still dark and Jasper's voice was coming from the direction of the bathroom. The door was open and she could see his back. He looked tense. She listened harder, until she could hear his voice. She realized that his hand was pressed to his ear. He must be on the phone then.

"I was just hoping...you know, it's Christmas...," he was saying. His voice had a strangely desperate quality to it. Bella's heart automatically clenched. She felt anger start to rise in her for whoever was hurting Jasper - and he was hurting. She could tell. "Mom...," he tried again. And then Bella understood.

She glanced at the clock, noting it was 5:45 A.M.. Too early for phone calls, except that his mother and much younger sister lived in Houston. He had been trying to reconcile with them for over a year - since he found out they were expecting Masen.

Bella bit her lip and silently prayed for a Christmas miracle. But there was only silence as Jasper put the phone down on the counter and bowed his head, defeated. She was about to go to him but the baby monitor on the nightstand started squall with Masen's I'm-waking-up-and-I'm-not-happy-about-it cries. "I'll get him," she called to her husband. Anyway, she knew that he would prefer a few moments alone to gather his thoughts.

It was Masen's first Christmas, and Bella was more than a little irritated it had started off on such a down note. Like any mother, she wanted things to be perfect for her child. She walked over to his crib where he was laying - red faced with his fists waving in the air; protesting that he didn't have her attention yet. "Shh, shh," she soothed, picking up her seven month old son and dancing a little as she walked him to the changing table.

Bella felt the irritation falling off her as she looked down on her son, deftly undoing the snaps of his onsie and changing his dirty diaper. He had her deep brown hair that was currently a mess of curls she couldn't bring herself to chop off. He had Jasper's sparkling blue eyes and the beginnings of his wide smile. Bella tickled his soft tummy, loving her son's baby giggle as much as she loved his father's deep chuckle. He cooed at her, babbling in baby-speak that was almost, but not quite, coherent.

Just as she was about to start wrestling Masen into his outfit she felt two strong arms encircle her waist from behind. Warmth spread from her belly across her chest and she smiled, leaning back into his embrace. He leaned his head down to pepper soft kisses against her hair. "Merry Christmas, Darlin'," he murmured.

She turned slightly and tilted her head upward so they could share a lingering kiss. "Merry Christmas," murmured back, and she could see the love and content in his eyes were overpowering the sadness.

"Why don't you let me finish getting my boy ready? You go get ready," he offered, still holding her to him tightly.

Bella smiled. "You just want to make sure I don't dress him in one of the outfits Esme bought him," she teased lightly.

"My son doesn't do cuddly bears...not even on Christmas." He moved one of his large hands to curl around Masen's tiny one. "Right, Mace?"

Grinning, Bella pressed one more kiss to Jasper's lips and then disentangled herself from his arms. "When you pack his bag, make sure you pack the vest and shirt thing I got him the other day," she said over her shoulder as she made her way to the master bathroom.

Under the spray of the hot water, Bella allowed herself to acknowledge the subtle pang in her heart. Closed in by steam and heat, she let herself remember Christmases past. She smiled a small smile that she was allowed to remember. There was a time, not all that long ago, when her thoughts would have been agonizing; when she would have collapsed to her knees with a grief so powerful she couldn't breathe. Now the ache was quiet and her thoughts were wistful. She was grateful she could have her memories now. Remembering had been too painful before, but at the same time she had been terrified she would forget him.

She allowed herself to drift backward in time, to their first Christmas. She remembered Edward's sheepish yet eager grin as he'd pulled out a finely wrapped gift from under his jacket, almost as soon as she'd let him into her little apartment. She had glared, but he had insisted. "I couldn't resist," he'd claimed and then he'd kissed her until she'd stopped scowling.

She remembered his last Christmas. They'd just moved into the house they bought together. It was early Christmas morning and Bella was getting ready to head to his parent's house for Christmas breakfast. Edward had slid a small box with the daintiest of red bows on the top across the counter to her.

Wise to his tricks, she'd immediately plucked the bow off to reveal the name there. It had said Tiffany's.

"Edward," she had warned, wary. She was getting better about gifts but Tiffany's was way overboard and he knew it.

He had laughed. "Don't worry, love. I just wanted to see your face. It's just a hand me down in a Tiffany's box."

He had picked up the box again and dropped to one knee beside her. "Isabella. I love you more than my own life. Please," he'd looked at her from under his lashes as he plead, his eyes smoldering and tender all at the same time, "Please, tell me you'll marry me."

Looking down at him and his grandmother's antique engagement ring, she had finally said yes.

Bella allowed herself to remember the fervent, joyous kisses he'd covered her in before she came back to the present and shut the water off.

As she dried off and started to dress, she listened to her husband and son through the baby monitor on the nightstand. Masen would babble wordlessly and Jasper would answer as if he knew exactly what their son was talking about.

Smiling, Bella went to join her family.

A little while later they were all dressed in their nice Christmas clothes - except for Masen who would change into his after he'd had a chance to smear his breakfast all over his first set. Bella kissed Masen's forehead, inhaling the soothing baby and cookies scent of him, as he settled into his car seat. Straightening, she stood on her tip toes to kiss Jasper again, smoothing her hand over the shirt and tie her wore. "My boys clean up so well," she said adoringly.

Jasper messed with his tie, pretending to grumble about his unwrinkled and not entirely comfortable clothing. Then he smiled and kissed Bella in earnest before reaching over to grab Masen and his car seat.

They spent the drive in relative silence. Bella wanted to ask him about his conversation with his mother, but knew that she would only make things worse. Jasper was obviously dwelling. She could see a tightness at the corner of his eyes as he drove. He knew that she was watching him surreptitiously, and with a small sigh he took his right hand off the steering wheel, holding it open in invitation. She put her hand in his and he squeezed her fingers, letting her know that he appreciated her concern, and that he was here with her.

They pulled up to the Cullen house and Esme had the door open before they'd unbuckled Masen. She hugged and kissed Bella and Jasper both before scooping up the boy she considered a grandson. Carlisle hugged them both and took the diaper bag from Bella. Charlie was waiting inside the house with a hug for Bella, a firm handshake for Jasper and a small wrestling match for Esme as he claimed his grandson. He was flying solo this morning as his wife, Sue, was with her kids Seth and Leah for the morning. Rosalie and Emmett arrived a short time later with the four year old blond beauty they had adopted earlier that year, Tatiana Ann.

As the family all settled down in the kitchen and the smells of breakfast filled the air, Jasper excused himself.

The Cullens had been nothing but welcoming to him after they'd figured out that their initial fears that he was taking advantage of Bella were unfounded. They treated him like family and had never given him any reason to believe that they were not being ingenuous. Still, Jasper occasionally felt - off. The holidays always brought with them a surreal feel of being displaced in time. Fresh from his mother's continued rejection - the feeling was even worse.

He felt like he was straddling two different worlds. There was part of him that remembered that if this had been a perfect world he would probably be in his mother's home, with Alice at his side. Jasper brushed his fingers over the set of photos that Esme had set out on the mantle. They were photos of past Christmases. He saw two boys, a dark haired 7-year-old with a dimpled smile and a beautiful bronze-haired 5 year old wrestling playfully amidst a mess of wrapping paper while a younger Esme and Carlisle watched them with adoration. The same boys, a decade later - Edward looking nearly giddy as he sat on his piano bench and Emmett looking like he had been caught in the act of bouncing up and down as they both looked at the mountain of presents beneath the tree. There were a few more, of course. Jasper picked up one of the family, including Bella and Rosalie. In the picture, Edward held Bella in his lap and they were looking at each other. It was easy to see the love between them.

Jasper felt his eyebrows furrowing, not sure what he should be feeling. He felt like a guest in this house that another man had called home, with another man's family and another man's wife. He wasn't unwelcome, but nor did he belong.

He didn't notice Esme come up beside him until she had picked up the frame with the two smiling teenagers. She looked down on it fondly. "It never mattered what age they were, Emmett and Edward were always 5 years old on Christmas morning. I think Emmett would already be into the presents except that Rose is making him set a good example for Tatiana."

Feeling slightly guilty, Jasper put down the frame he had been holding and turned to smile at Esme. She was looking at him with eyes he recognized. It was the same look that Jasper had seen on his own mother when she knew something was wrong though Jasper hadn't said a word. "My momma sense is tingling," his mother had told him on more than one occasion, harking back to Jasper's childhood love of Spiderman.

Esme was a little more subtle. "You know, Jasper, when Emmett first brought Rosalie home I honestly didn't understand what he saw in her. She was cold and closed where he was open and warm. But I knew that there was something about her that Emmett adored, and as long as I knew that I couldn't help but accept her and love her, because he loved her. Over time, I understood what made her so cold that first meeting, and she understood that she was loved here."

She paused, her finger stroking the glass over the face of 15 year old Edward. Her face crumpled a little before she got herself under enough control to speak. "Edward was such an amazing young man. I always knew that the person who captured his heart would be special, but Bella is a gift I could never have predicted. It was never, not even for a moment, difficult to love her as a daughter."

Jasper nodded his fervent agreement as Esme placed the frame back. She looked across the row of photographs once more before turning to Jasper. Her eyes were tender, and gentle. They were the eyes of a mother for her child. "Bella always had the ability to see the soul of a person; to understand what was so special about them. My son was robbed of his life, but that doesn't mean I thought that my daughter shouldn't get the life she deserved. For a little while there, I thought I had lost my son and my daughter, but you've brought her back to me- to all of us. You are a good man, and a good son. Family is built not just of blood, but of experience, emotion and love."

Teary-eyed now, Jasper couldn't respond. He only pulled Esme into his arms, hugging her as he longed to be able to hug his own mother. He felt the love of a mother for her son and he felt like he belonged. "Thank you," he whispered, hoping his voice conveyed exactly what he meant. She hugged him back tightly, nothing but happy to share her home, her family and her love with a man like Jasper.

When Esme and Jasper returned to the dining room breakfast had been laid out. Bella smiled at her husband, noticing the sadness that had tainted his eyes and his stance was all but gone. He grinned back, grabbing Masen out of her arms to press a kiss to his cheek. Bella felt a great measure of relief. She had known that only a mother's love could ease Jasper's pain today. She should have known that Esme was more than up to the task. She glanced at her former mother-in-law with appreciation before turning back just as Jasper settled into the seat next to hers. He reached over and grabbed her hand, threading their fingers together under the table.

Conversation flowed easily and Jasper almost felt silly for feeling so out of place earlier. Emmett engaged him in a mini food fight with bits of pancake before Esme chastised them both with a cry of "Boys!" and a pointed look. He watched Tatiana, under Bella and Rosalie's watchful gaze, insisted on carefully feeding Masen his baby food. He listened in on Carlisle and Charlie as Carlisle pointed out Emmett's antsy behavior as the meal wore on. He snickered, remembering what Esme had said about Emmett and Edward when it came to Christmas and asked the older men if they wanted to bet how much longer Emmett would last. Carlisle bet on 15 more minutes, Charlie on 20, Jasper opted for 10.

"Tats, don't you want to see what Santa brought you for Christmas," Emmett finally exploded, 7 minutes later.

Rosalie shot him a glare. "Tats? Emmett, really?"

But the damage was done. Tatiana was out of her seat and jumping up and down excitedly in a heartbeat. Laughing, Charlie and Carlisle handed over Jasper's winnings and the family got up from the table. Emmett and Rosalie followed Tatiana out into the living room, bickering good-naturedly about how much Rosalie hated the nickname Emmett had just bestowed upon their daughter. Jasper passed Masen to Carlisle, promising that they would join the family in just a moment. He wanted to give Bella her present in private. Carlisle and Esme smiled indulgently as they left the room, Masen bouncing at Carlisle's hip.

"I know how you feel about jewelry," Jasper explained when everyone was out of the dining room, "So I didn't want you to feel like you had to wear this. But when I saw it, I thought of you," he said as he pulled her hand out. He placed a bracelet there and watched her as she looked at it.

It was a simple bracelet. The links were silver, but set an equal distance apart were four gemstones. Emerald, Masen's birthstone, Sapphire, Bella's birthstone, Topaz, Jasper's birthstone, and, finally, Alexandrite. Bella's eyes shot up to his as she placed each stone. Alexandrite was the birthstone for June - Edward's birthstone.

He always knew exactly what she needed. Bella flew into Jasper's arms, holding him so tightly he had trouble breathing - not that he minded. "It's perfect," she whispered, kissing his ear and the side of his neck.

He laughed a little as he held her, glad that she liked the present. "You know... the links are adjustable... if we needed to add a stone."

Bella pulled back to give him a surprised look, but she was smiling. "We just barely got Masen to sleep through the night and you want to add another link?"

"Later," Jasper said, and grinned at her obvious happiness. "When you want. If you want."

"Hey, lovebirds! Hurry it up! My girl wants to get into her presents!" Emmett called from the living room.

Jasper and Bella giggled a little at Emmett's antics. They came together for one more deep, sensual kiss before disentangling themselves. Hand in hand, they walked out to their waiting family.

**Yes, I have decided to turn this thing into a series of one shots. I have at least two that I'm thinking of currently. Apparently, I can't let go of these characters but they also don't have just a single storyline. So there you have it.**

**Anyway, Merry Christmas. I hope you enjoyed.**


	4. For Melly

**A/N – So, Melly decided that she deserved a drabble of her own in my little universe. And she does. My girls are amazing. She requested the moment Bella found out she was pregnant with Masen. I wrote it. I'm so out of order with these outtake drabble thing-a-ma-bobers.**

**Small lemon included. Belated Merry Christmas, Melly!**

Bella was daydreaming.

Having a doctor in the family had its benefits, one of them being that it had been a long time since she'd had to wait in the waiting room. Today she had to wait. Carlisle's office was occupied by an impromptu meeting about one of his regular patients. He had been profusely apologetic but Bella had been understanding. Real patients were vastly more important than she was. After all, there was nothing wrong with her.

She had been over helping Esme arrange a canned food drive that she was sponsoring for Thanksgiving. When she had confessed to eating nothing for breakfast Esme had immediately set a plate of food in front of her. Bella had pushed it around listlessly. Esme being Esme had prodded until Bella admitted that she hadn't really had a great appetite for a week or so. She had chalked it up to flu season - everyone was always on the brink of getting sick if they weren't sick already.

Ever since Edward had died, Esme was hyper aware of any potential health or safety risk to her family. At the slightest sign of any ailment, she would start worrying. Knowing that Esme wouldn't sleep well until she'd had herself checked out, Bella had allowed her to call Carlisle.

That was how Bella had ended up in a hospital waiting room. She was used to Carlisle either being readily available or his office being vacant, so she had not brought anything to amuse herself with. She had resorted to a battered Cosmopolitan magazine that she'd found in the magazine pile. She had been reading about the "12 things that drive him wild" when she had gotten caught up thinking about the day before.

It was Saturday morning and Bella had woken up before Jasper. She'd slipped out of bed, putting on a pair of the boy shorts she slept in and Jasper's wife beater. Tucking her hair up into a high ponytail and popping her earbuds in her ears, Bella had set about making breakfast. Her stomach had been acting funny so she didn't really feel like anything but she felt like making her husband's favorite meal.

She let herself get lost in the music as she worked, dancing her way around the kitchen. She was debating making eggs but even the thought of the smell of fried eggs made her nauseous. She was just returning the eggs to the refrigerator when she felt Jasper's hands at her hips. She smiled and stilled, letting him kiss her neck before she turned to face him.

Jasper didn't say a word. He leaned in as Bella tilted her head upward, their lips meeting and devouring each other hungrily. Their movements were instinctual and familiar; greedy and heated. He pulled the earbuds from her ears and tucked them safely into the pocket of her shorts with her I-Pod.

"Mmm, I consider myself a feminist, but I have to admit, the sight of my wife, barefoot and making breakfast in the kitchen in my undershirt is incredibly sexy," he growled in her ear. He moved his hands down to cup her ass, pulling her against him. "Of course, that could also have something to do with the way her magnificent little ass looks shaking around in these fantastic little shorts."

She'd laughed, feeling the fire for him spreading throughout her body. She wanted him - now. On the kitchen counter, on the floor, against the wall...but a smell permeated her lusty senses, bringing her back to reality. "Your wife is going to burn your breakfast if you don't let her go, and what will that do for your domestic fantasies?"

He made a grumbling noise but let her go long enough that she could flip the bacon and take the waffle out of the waffle iron.

Jasper reached over and twisted the knob on the stove off. Bella turned to look at him. He had fire in his eyes as he took the few steps toward her, putting his hands back on her hips and leaning in to trace slow kisses everywhere but her lips.

Bella let out a low whimper, trying to remember how to speak and desperate for his mouth on hers, among other things. "Your breakfast..."

"I like my bacon undercooked," Jasper claimed, though she knew damn well that he preferred his bacon on the crispy side. His hands worked their way under her shirt. He moved his fingers up her sides, around to her back, sending delightful shivers up her spine.

She could feel his arousal pressing against her through the thin material of the pajama pants he wore. With a roll of her eyes she gave in, she grabbed his arms and sidestepped a couple of times so her back was against the wall instead of the counter. Then she was attacking his lips with gusto. He kissed her back, hungry for only her. He slipped her shorts down, teasing her with his fingers rubbing over her but never into her until she was wriggling beneath him, moaning his name and aching for him.

Never one to be teased without teasing back, Bella had pushed his pajama pants down and had started to run her fingers over his erection, never squeezing. She worked her way over him and then under his length, running a single finger around his balls and in between them.

"Fuck," Jasper hissed between clenched teeth. He slid his hands back around to her ass, pressing upward. Understanding what he wanted, Bella had jumped slightly, wrapping her legs around him, her back leaning against the wall behind them. They were attached at the lips as Jasper guided himself into her.

The sharp cry of a child brought Bella back to the present and the doctor's office she was in. She felt a little embarrassed, having such a personal fantasy in such a public place. Her cheeks were flushed. It took a moment for her to realize that she was actually light headed. She'd broken out in a cold sweat, not a hot one. And her stomach was twisting. She stood and made a dash for the bathroom, getting in just in time to lose what little lunch Esme had guilted her into eating.

Bella stood, rinsing her mouth and splashing cool water on her face. She felt horrible. Her head pounded as she rested it against the wall, giving herself a moment before she stepped outside. Carlisle was standing in the waiting room when she emerged.

Noting the light sheen of sweat on her face and her queasy expression, Carlisle clucked in sympathy. "Sorry that took so long, Bella." He held the door open.

She shook her head and walked forward. She started to tell him it was no problem, but just then a woman walked out of the office, brushing by Bella quickly. The scent of her perfume hit Bella like a slap in the face. Her vision swam and her knees buckled. She pitched forward, her head striking the edge of the door as she fell. Her vision exploded in a white pain before the entire world went black.

Bella stirred only a short time later when a sharp, burning pain at her temple jarred her into consciousness.

"Sorry," Carlisle said. It took a moment for Bella to reorient herself. She was in one of the exam rooms, laying on one of the paper covered tables. Carlisle was at her head, cleaning the gash she had on her forehead.

Woozy and somewhat disoriented, Bella looked around the room. She saw that he had a stitch kit on the little silver table. She groaned quietly. She had been rather clumsy as a teenager and had had her share of stitches. She closed her eyes again, trying to ease her headache.

It took her a few minutes to realize that Carlisle wasn't talking. His usual bedside manner was soothing and gentle. His hands, as he stitched her head, were deft and as painless as possible, but it was odd that he wasn't talking. Bella opened her eyes and looked over at him without moving her head. He wasn't looking at her.

A sick sense of dread started to build in her stomach. "Carlisle? Is there something wrong?"

"No," he said quickly. He gave a tight smile but he still wasn't looking at her. "At least, I don't think so."

He finished his work.

"Please, Carlisle. What aren't you saying?"

Then he did look at her, and his smile was genuine, though his eyes held a hint of sadness. "I am fairly positive that you're pregnant, Bella."

Bella couldn't breathe. Her entire world seemed to crawl to a stop.

"Of course, we'll want to get all the usual tests run. If you're up to it, we can do the blood work right here," Carlisle continued quietly.

Bella had to laugh of the absurdity of Edward's father having to tell her she was pregnant with a child that wasn't his son's. Once she started laughing she couldn't stop. Then she was suddenly crying through her giggles; unsure of how to feel or what to want. Then she needed Jasper so badly she literally gasped out loud.

"Are you alright, dear?" Carlisle asked, concerned. He rubbed her back, trying to sooth her.

"I don't know," Bella admitted in a small voice. "We hadn't talked about this... we didn't plan. I need Jasper. Please. Will you call him?"

"Of course," Carlisle stood and moved to the door. "I'll be right back."

When he was gone Bella tried to process what she was feeling. She hadn't really thought about kids very often, even in her first life. Edward had wanted kids. They had talked about it in the months leading up to their wedding. Lying in his arms, Bella had been able to imagine a future with children in it. She had pictured a boy with Edward's deep green eyes or a rambunctious girl with his hair.

She had not thought about a future with children in it since Edward had died - taking that future with him. She and Jasper had not spoken about children at all. There was too much else to do. He had only been out of prison for 4 months and between trying to figure out how they worked together and trying to reacquaint themselves with actually living their lives, there hadn't been much talk of the future.

With a hand splayed over the flatness of her belly, Bella started to let herself imagine the life that was forming inside of her. She thought back to health class, remembering the cells splitting and multiplying. She glanced around the office, noticing for the first time a chart that showed what a baby looked like as it formed, week by week. One tiny cell to an alien looking thing to a full fledged human being. Bella gasped, overcome with a new emotion; a love and desire she had never felt before. She was insane with worry, her mind suddenly recalling the multitude of things that could go wrong, at the same time she was awash with wonder. She wanted to know everything. She wanted to know what her baby looked like right now and what she was supposed to do to keep it safe.

Most of all, she wanted Jasper here so she could allow herself to imagine a child in his arms - a child that was part her and part him; the combination of their love and the life they had built together.

***  
Jasper ran down the hallway of the hospital, his footsteps seeming to echo with every frantic beat of his heart. His mind was a tumultuous mess of near panic. _Let her be okay. Please, I can't do it again. I just can't._

He hated hospitals with a fiery passion. He had watched his father die in a hospital when he was a young boy and he had woken up in a hospital the first time he opened his eyes after Alice died. He hated knowing that somewhere in the same building he stood in, someone was probably taking their last breath as he ran through the halls.

He knew without a shadow of a doubt that he wouldn't survive if it was Bella. He couldn't go through losing another woman he loved. It would destroy him. The mere possibility had him in an absolute frenzy.

Talking with a client, he hadn't answered his cell phone when Carlisle had called. It had taken him 20 minutes to find the missed call, 1 minute to listen to the voicemail Carlisle had left saying Bella was in the hospital and could he please come as soon as possible, and 5 horrendously long minutes for him to drive to the hospital from his work.

His logical mind had attempted to reason with him. Carlisle had sounded odd on the voicemail, but not sad or anxious. He'd sounded professional. He'd been in doctor mode. Surely, if Bella was knocking on death's door his voice would have held some measure of anxiety, or he would have had someone else call since he would have been by Bella's side. But Jasper's emotional mind had heard the words Bella and hospital and had told his rational mind to fuck off.

He barreled into Carlisle, nearly knocking the other man over. "Bella. Where is she, please tell me she's okay," Jasper babbled, his words running into each other he was speaking so fast.

Carlisle blinked, trying to understand Jasper's words and the panic that was written clearly all over his face. "She's fine. Jasper, calm down."

"You don't go to a hospital when you're fine," Jasper said through clenched teeth. Carlisle's words had their desired effect though. Relief calmed Jasper's frantic nerves somewhat.

Putting a steadying hand on Jasper's arm, Carlisle shook his head apologetically. "I should have been clearer in my message. I'm didn't mean to worry you. Bella was feeling sick and Esme convinced her to let me take a look at her. She fainted and hit her head. I've already stitched her up and she's fine. We're just running a few tests while she's here." He pointed to a room down the hallway, and Jasper was running again, forgetting his manners in his need to see his wife now.

She was perched on the edge of the paper covered table, her legs kicking the metal restlessly. Her head came up when he entered the room. He could see her eyes were red from crying, but she also had the strangest glow on her face. She launched herself off the table as he darted into the room, catching her easily. "Jesus Bella, you scared the hell out of me," he said into her hair, finally able to breathe again.

His arms wrapped tightly around her, Bella could feel the love Jasper had for her envelope her. She started crying again, unable to help herself. Jasper's back stiffened under her fingers. He backed away, holding her face in between his hands. His eyes were worried again. "Why are you crying? Carlisle said you were okay."

"I am," she assured him, trying to gather her thoughts and words. She didn't know how to say this. She was terribly afraid that he wouldn't want this. She looked into his worried eyes, getting lost momentarily in the beauty of how blue they were. She wondered if their child would have his eyes, and decided that she hoped it would. "I'm pregnant," she whispered.

Jasper blinked, a million thoughts filling his head at the same time.

He and Alice had talked about kids. Specifically, they'd talked about not having kids. Alice's Jasper had philosophized about kids not being a necessity and all the things they could do with their lives if they weren't tied down.

Bella's Jasper knew the frailty of human life and thought the idea that this new life he and Bella had created together might live and breathe and laugh and cry was profound. He thought about a million different things that a child could bring to their lives. He felt a million different emotions at once. Shock since this was not what he had expected - he had come into the hospital thinking of death only to be faced with a brand new life. Fear that he couldn't be the father that his and Bella's child deserved - just over a year ago he'd been nothing but a dead-eyed criminal wasting away in a prison cell.

The smile that lit his face then proved which emotion was winning over all of them. He was happy. More than happy, he was exultant. He needed to know what Bella thought so he would know how to react. "Are you okay with this?"

Bella thought back to the conversation she'd just had with Carlisle. Carlisle had come back after calling Jasper and had set about drawing her blood. He had apologized for his earlier behavior. _"I don't want you to think I'm anything but happy for you and Jasper, Bella. It's just hard sometimes - reconciling the life that my son should have had with my desire to see you happy as well." _She recognized, in all her tumbling emotions, that she was slightly guilty that Edward would have wanted this and she had not had the time to give it to him. She had understood Carlisle's emotions, and she allowed herself to let her guilt go. "I want this with you, Jasper. I want to be happy. I just need to know what you want."

Though she wouldn't have thought it possible, Jasper's smile got wider. "I'm gonna be a daddy?" he asked, letting the reality seep into him and letting the happiness spread. "We're going to have a baby?"

Sniffling, Bella smiled back, allowing hope to fill her, pushing aside every other emotion. She nodded. "Yea."

He whooped, louder than he had when she'd told him she wanted to marry him. He squeezed her to him tightly, then abruptly let her go. "Oh, god. I'm holding you too tightly. You have to tell me!"

Bella had to laugh, remembering her panicked thoughts just a while before. "You weren't holding me too tightly. I'm not made of glass, I'm just pregnant."

"Just?!" Jasper protested. He was grinning like an absolute idiot and it made Bella giddy. "When? Do you know? Where's Carlisle? I have questions."

She laughed again. "Mid-May," she answered.

Jasper did the math in his head. The baby would have been conceived in August then. He pursed his lips. Edward and Alice had both died in August. He and Bella had lost themselves in each other, reaffirming that they were still alive despite the pain they had both endured. It seemed bittersweet and fitting that this new life had begun on the anniversary of the death of Bella and Jasper's previous world. Life rising from ash. It was perfect. It was them.

**Crikey. I'm going to go play with LIVE Edward and Bella now. Much love for Melly for always being there and for asking me for this moment. I hope I did it justice.**


	5. Edward

**A/n: So there I was, trying to finish other things, when these characters started talking to me again. I see at least one more chapter for this collection of o/S's. The next one will have more of Jasper and Alice's story. **

**Disclaimer: These are Stephenie's characters, not mine, though I do love them so.**

For a long minute, Bella was unsure of place and time. Her mind, befuddled by sleep and weariness, could not comprehend the two realities – the two portions of her life – that seemed to be merging into one. The last thing she remembered was putting Masen in his crib. Exhausted, she had sat in the rocking chair, watching and waiting for him to sleep. Then she must have fallen asleep.

It took her slowly awakening brain another full minute to realize that she should not be hearing Edward's honey smooth, melodic, and heartbreakingly tender humming. She must have been dreaming of her previous life. She waited for the dream to break and for her to wake up to reality, but then she heard Masen's distinct cooing. This was where her mind had trouble. Edward and Masen did not exist in the same lifetime - her brain was increasingly insistent on this point.

She was almost afraid to open her eyes.

He was there...standing over Masen's crib and humming softly. It was a lullaby. It was her lullaby - the song he had composed for her shortly after they'd met. Bella's breath caught as he turned to her. Everything in her seemed to freeze.

Nothing in her would ever have expected this moment was possible, but if she had thought about it, she would not have expected this. She might have expected him in the tuxedo he'd died in – his clothing macabre with his own blood as it had been in real life. She might have expected to see the holes in his chest and his stomach. That's what happened in movies and television shows. That was how the dead appeared.

Instead he is as he had been every day of his real life. He was devastatingly beautiful – inhumanly so, now more than ever. Her memories and her photographs had not done him justice. He stood before her in casual clothing, his white undershirt smooth and pristine – unblemished by even so much as a wrinkle. He wore a gray button down open, the fabric hugging the defined muscles of his upper arms.

He didn't look dead. He looked radiant. Perfect. Too perfect. She had always likened him to an angel – with his painfully beautiful features and his kind, bright, loving soul. It was never truer than it was at that very moment. He wouldn't have been more angelic if he had had wings, a halo and a harp. His skin had a fine shimmer to it that she did not remember from their life together – as if he would sparkle when he was in direct sunlight.

His lips turned up in a smile that was only hers. His eyes were unfathomably deep; a shade of green lighter and more luminous than she remembered. "Hello, love," he said, and his voice too was the same, but different. There was a slight reverberation to his tone; like the smallest of echoes. His voice had always reminded her of notes played with finesse on the piano; another of his many talents. Now the notes still strung together, creating beautiful music, but the pedal was just held down.

"Am I dreaming?" Bella whispered. Edward's smile became impossibly softer.

"Yes and no," he answered, a light note of humor in his voice. "What makes a dream? I'm not tangible enough to be reality," he demonstrated by running his hand through the wooden bars of the crib. They passed through without incident. "And yet you are awake. A waking dream, perhaps?" he mused thoughtfully.

She remembered this. She remembered lying in bed with him, or being curled up against him on the couch while he philosophized over whatever it was they happened to be discussing. Most of the time she was just fascinated by how his mind worked. He was insightful. He had an uncanny ability to read people and situations. Bella was not as unobservant as so many others so they worked well together. She understood the things he saw and often had a unique, equally insightful viewpoint of her own. They'd spent hours just talking.

She closed her eyes, beginning to unfreeze. Emotions were seeping into her. Powerful. Painful. Ecstatic. "You could be a delusion," she murmured, more to herself than to him.

"Bella, open your eyes," he requested. Remembering that, delusion or no, Edward's presence could only be ephemeral, and she was wasting it behind her closed eyelids, Bella obeyed. He hadn't moved, but his look had become appropriately abashed. Even in death he never wanted to hurt her. "The mind shuts down to protect itself. When this happens, a number of psychological effects may occur. However, your mind is sound. You're not delusional," he concluded.

That wasn't always the case, she knew well. Before Jasper, she had known the edge of madness. She had skirted it on a near constant basis, unable to understand how her mind did not snap under the weight of the bleak abyss Edward's death had caused in her. Just the memory of the agony, the feeling that her mind could not bear the force of the churning inside of her, had her reeling briefly.

He was right, though. Her mind was healthy now. Most of the time, it was a downright pleasant place to be. "Yet here you are."

He smiled again, hearing the pain diminish in her voice. "I've always been here, love." His smile was welcoming, as if he was trying to tell her not to be afraid. And she wasn't afraid of him. Not really.

She stepped hesitantly to his side. She knew she couldn't touch him, but she could feel him instantly. That same spark that had always been present when he was alive. That magnetism that drew her to him. It was still there. She closed her eyes briefly and let the feeling wash over her. His presence was both soothing and titillating.

She had missed it. She had missed him.

_Like the deserts miss the rains._

She remembered that the deserts had all once been a lush oasis, before the sun had seeped the life out of everything. She had once compared life without him to a desert - flat and barren. The desert where the sun was merciless and would kill you just as soon as it would give you life.

It had taken Jasper for her to realize that the desert had its own beauty. The expanse of the land and the colors over the distant mountain were gorgeous. Life was plentiful in the desert - its residents simply had thicker skin. The plants and animals who lived there had adapted, just as Bella had.

She looked over at him again, remembering thinking that she needed him like she needed water. He was simply a necessity. But like the cacti and the Gila monsters, she had learned to survive without him.

And now she thrived - a cactus in full bloom.

He watched her with that adoring look in his eyes. He had always told her she was strong - stronger than him. He smiled again as he looked at her, and then he turned his eyes back to where her son lay in his crib.

"He's perfect, you know?" Edward's lips quirked up as he stared down at the child. "All the more so because, in a perfect world, he wouldn't even exist." He looked up at her again. "He's so beautiful, Bella."

Bella wasn't going to argue with that. The day she'd given birth to Masen and the doctor had laid him, pink faced and screaming, in her arms, her entire heart had expanded. Her capacity to love had gotten bigger. She had always thought that Edward was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen - but brand new and covered in the gore of birth, Masen was by far the most gorgeous sight her eyes had ever beheld. Looking between Edward and her son - it was a paradox her merely human mind didn't quite know how to deal with. It was too much beauty all at once.

She wondered, briefly, what it would have been like to hold Edward's child in her arms. The thought disappeared as quickly as it came. Masen was a gift she still had trouble comprehending entirely.

Edward hummed again, though Masen was already asleep. His fingers were evanescent as he moved them over the baby's perfect skin. Masen didn't react, of course. Edward wasn't made of anything real. Edward pursed his lips, his look wistful. "I remember imagining this. Standing over our child with you by my side; marveling in the life we created together. Maybe it's strange… I know he's not mine, but it feels that way." He looked up at Bella and smiled, the beautiful lopsided grin that she knew so well and had missed so much. "I suppose, in blood and science, he isn't mine, but in every other way he belongs to all of us – doesn't he?"

"Edward..." she was unsure of what she wanted to say. Some vague part of her felt guilty. She loved Jasper with everything she had become, and nothing could change that. Still, she and Edward were connected at their core - at the very soul level, and here she stood as another man's wife, having borne another man's child.

Death and time had not impeded Edward's ability to read her face. "Bella, please. It's not like you owe me an explanation. I wanted this with you, but I also want this for you. Don't you remember what you used to say to me? 'Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans'?"

She had to laugh, reaching out to stroke her son's downy cheek. John Lennon had a few things right, as it turned out. "You're not...angry? Jealous?" She had to ask.

He hesitated a moment before answering. "It's not like that here. It's…very peaceful. I remember the feelings I used to have…the feelings of possessiveness. Jealousy that anyone else would get to hold you, and love you. But they're vague." He tilted his head, a far away look in his eyes. "It's like…do you know when you know something is right – but your feelings don't let you like it, or accept it? That doesn't exist here. There's no anger here. No jealousy. No ugliness. When something is right, you just accept it." He turned to her again, a peaceful smile on his angel's face. "And you and your husband ARE right, Bella."

Even if she had wanted to argue, and no part of her did, she couldn't have. She and Jasper fit. They were good as partners. They were good as lovers. Being with Jasper had felt right even when her entire world was tinted in varying shades of wrong.

"I like him, you know," Edward said. "A lot. He's a good husband to you and a wonderful father to Masen. And he protects you. I don't even think you realize how much he protects you." he grinned. "You know when you're out with him and he always keeps his arms around you, holding you tight? He doesn't let on - but he's watching. He's always watching. He never lets anyone so much as run into you." He gave her a pointed look. "It might have made things so much easier on me if I had learned to look out for you out of the corner of my eye."

Bella chuffed, but while it had irritated her, many times, that Edward was so over-protective, she couldn't fault Jasper for it. Not after the way he'd lost Alice. "This is what you do with your afterlife? You watch?"

"Yes."

"You were never good at passivity, Edward."

He looked up at her from underneath long eyelashes. "You were never good at going this long without blushing. You don't blush anymore. Not even for me, it appears," he said wistfully.

She conceded the point. They were both changed. With his eyes on her, Bella wondered just how much she had changed. Even the body that Edward's hands had once known intimately was changed. She was softer now - her curves more defined and her breasts fuller.

His eyes twinkled with mischief. "You're also spending the money I left you. That was a pleasant surprise. You never even let me buy you anything."

Bella smiled, but for the first time since she'd opened her eyes she felt the weight of his loss, and the sureness that when their time was up, she would not see him again. Tears threatened her eyes. "Edward...when you were alive, I didn't need anything but you."

He turned toward her, and he looked as if he wanted to take her into his arms and wipe her tears away. "And when I was gone...you needed him. I understand that. You can't imagine how happy it makes me that you have him Bella. Watching you before...when I couldn't hold you, and comfort you...that was hell."

"You said it was peaceful there," Bella said, irrationally hating that she had caused him pain.

Edward pursed his lips, searching for the words to describe the things that she could not fully grasp until her own time came. "You know how they talk about unfinished business? Ghosts and all that?" She nodded and he continued. "I suppose, there's a truth to that. You can choose to move on - but it wasn't a choice for me. I could not find my peace until you had yours."

He watched as her tense features relaxed. "I know that you don't need my approval, Bella, but I do approve of Jasper."

Bella laughed a little. He quirked an eyebrow at her questioningly. "It's just so strange to hear from you. I know these things - of course I do. And I know who Jasper really is. But I did meet him in prison, you know. When you were alive, you would have balked at the idea of me being around someone so dangerous - much less marrying him."

Edward's expression darkened ever so slightly. "Death has taught me that life cannot be reduced to black and white. I know exactly what happened to Alice Whitlock. How could I fault him when I would have done the same." He seemed to choke on the words, shaking his head as if he was, even now, unable to imagine it happening to Bella. "How can I be anything but grateful that he had the strength to survive so he could make his way to you?"

"You really are okay with this," Bella said wondrously. Again, tears filled her eyes. She knew, instinctively, that their time was drawing short. Talking to him, she had relived everything about him that she had loved - his kindness, his humor, his love for her, and his selflessness. She knew she would feel his loss, but she also knew that she would have Jasper's arms to fall into, and the pain would not outweigh the sweetness that she had gotten even as little time as she had with this amazing man. She wondered, for the first time, if he would feel the pain of her loss, when he had to disappear to wherever he existed. "Edward, I can't bear to think of you being alone."

He reached out, his hands going to stroke her cheek, to brush away the tears that had escaped. Bella closed her eyes, feeling his energy caressing her without feeling anything tangible. "But I'm not alone," he assured her. "Alice is here too, of course."

Bella's eyes shot open in surprise. She hadn't considered that. She felt slightly awkward. "She is?"

Edward nodded. "You'd like her, love. She's so funny. Spunky." He laughed a little, and rolled his eyes. Bella was surprised at the wave of nostalgia that small gesture caused in her. "She thinks she can see the future." He tilted his head, looking back down at Masen fondly. "Maybe she can. She predicted you would be pregnant within 5 months of Jasper's release. I told her she was crazy."

He looked at her again and she was biting her lip, unsure of how to feel. "She loves you Bella," he hurried to assure her. "Genuinely, she adores you. She adores Masen too." He looked wistful again. "In some other life, I could have looked on her as a sister, and Jasper as a brother. She would have made a good aunt to our children. We all would have been happy together."

His musing was cut off abruptly by the sound of the garage door opening. Their time was up.

There were a million things Bella suddenly wanted to ask; wanted to know. She wanted to know if he had suffered before he had died. She wanted to know if he blamed her at all. She wanted his arms around her again, with all the time in the world ahead of them - like it used to be.

Her heart caught in her throat and she found herself speechless. There was too much. Too much to say and too much left undone between them with no way left to do it.

"Can I ask you a favor?" Edward said quickly.

"Anything," Bella whispered.

Edward looked down at Masen and smiled one more time. "Teach him how to play the piano? Alice says he'll enjoy it - and music has been too long away from your and Jasper's lives."

Bella remembered sitting next to Edward at the piano. His piano that was locked away in storage right now. She remembered that Jasper had told her how he'd played sweet love songs for Alice on his guitar. She remembered what Edward said about Masen being all of theirs, and she thought about the music in all of their lives being resurrected in her son. She nodded.

Edward smiled, and he seemed to dim before her eyes. She realized he was becoming translucent.

"Edward, I love you." They were the words she couldn't say as Edward lay dying in her arms, and she needed to know that he knew.

His smile was tender, and when he spoke again his voice was an echo. "I know sweetheart. I love you. More than my own life, remember? Always."

As his words faded, he faded entirely from her view. Her heart twisted and ached, but it was not as bad as the first time. She knew where she wanted to be. She knew what she needed. She checked to make sure Masen was still sleeping and then she ran, blindly, to the living room.

"Bella?" Jasper caught her in his arms, pulling her to him automatically. "darlin', what's wrong?"

Bella shook her head. "Nothing, not," but then the threshold of tears broke and she started to sob. It wasn't that she was sad. She was everything at once. What had just happened was beautiful and overwhelming. She'd seen him again. She'd talked to him. She'd had to lose him again - though it wasn't really losing him. She'd also gotten him back in some way. "I saw him. He was here," she babbled against Jasper's chest.

He held her tighter and she could feel his body tense beneath her arms. "Who was here, darlin', I can't understand what you're saying."

Bella took a deep breath, struggling to calm down. She knew she was scaring the hell out of Jasper, and she really didn't need to. "Edward. I saw him. I talked to him. Oh, my god." The enormity of what had just occurred sent her into a fresh wave of sobs. She couldn't seem to get a hold of herself.

Jasper held her at arms length and she expected him to tell her she was crazy. Instead, his eyebrows furrowed. "Is he still here? Can you still see him? Tell me where he is." Jasper looked furious. His fists were clenched and he was looking around the room.

"No! No. He's not..." Bella stopped, realizing just how ridiculous this situation currently was. "Jasper, he's incorporeal. What were you going to do?"

"If he's hurting you, I don't care I'll find a way to kick his ass. Do we need a priest? We can do an exorcism."

How he kept a straight face she would never know. Bella started giggling and his furious glare turned into a huge smile. He pulled her into his arms and started to kiss away her tears."I'd do anything for you, Bella." He guided them to the couch and laid down with her in his arms. "No one hurts you, not even your dead husband."

"You're my husband," she said, looking into his eyes. "And seeing Edward didn't hurt, not really." She sniffled and laid her head on his chest, curling against him.

She told him about the whole encounter, nearly word for word. Jasper said very little, just held her as his fingers ran through her hair.

"I like the idea of them watching over us together," Jasper said thoughtfully. "I like the idea that he knows Alice." He stroked Bella's cheek and smiled at her. "I always thought she would have loved you." His fingertips continued to trace across her face and he became serious. "I often wondered what he thought about me."

Bella furrowed her eyebrows, confused. "You did? You never told me."

"I don't think I knew how to explain it. You take such good care of me, Bella. I always felt like...Alice would have been appreciative. She can't take care of me, but she could rest assured that you give me everything I need." He looked off, trying to find the right words. "I often wondered...if I was taking care of you as well as Edward would have. You were his everything - I know from what you've told me, and from the stories Carlisle, Esme and Emmett have told. I've always wondered if he could ever consider me good enough for you."

Bella put her hand against his cheek and brought turned his face back to hers so that he could look in her eyes. "I cannot imagine my life without you. You've brought me happiness and hope, when I had lost everything. Never doubt that you give me what I need, Jasper. You've given me you, and that's a gift. Every single day with you is a gift."

She started to kiss him with tender, butterfly kisses about every inch of his face. Jasper knew what she was doing. She was telling him wordlessly that she was his. He always understood. How could he not? Not only did he understand, but it was part of what he loved about her - her endless capacity for love. He felt cheated of nothing. He was loved and cherished. Bella came packaged with her undying love for Edward just as he came packaged with his undying love for Alice but their devotion was to each other - promised in spirit and on paper. Jasper caught Bella's wandering lips with his own, assuring her silently that the message was received.

Bella shifted and stood. She said nothing but her smile was soft and gentle. She unbuttoned the pants she wore and slid them down as he moved to a sitting position on the couch. He watched her, his eyes telling her how beautiful he thought she was. For a moment there were no sounds in the house but the gentle slide of clothing falling, until they were bare to each other in body as they were in spirit.

She straddled him and they moved together - hands tracing and reclaiming bodies as their eyes never left each other. Only when their lips met did their eyes close. He guided himself into her as she lowered herself down on him. As Bella made love to her husband there were tears in her eyes. She felt again that surreal and powerful feeling she'd had watching Edward and Masen - like there was too much beauty, and her mind could not comprehend it. Despite the tragedy she had known, he knew she was lucky. She was alive, and in love with a beautiful man who adored her. The presence of their old lives, and the two beloved beings they had shared them with, was not a weight or a hindrance to their relationship. Instead, it added a dimension to them - it made each moment they had together more important, more precious.

In a perfect world, they might never have met - content and loved by Edward and Alice respectively. They'd, all four, had their lives planned out - and they were good lives. But the world was not perfect. It could be ugly. In a world that knew both light and darkness, they were perfect together.

**Dedication: Again, to my Melly who just…how did I write without this woman? And to my Cella who inspires me probably TOO much for my own good. And a special shout out to JadedandBoring … who is not boring and only slightly jaded and fuckawesome writer to boot. Thanks for making this little one-shot possible. You can find all three of them in my favorite authors, so check em out.**

**Also, I was nommed for like, 3 awards…which boggles my mind, so if you want to check that out and also check out some of the great stories you might be missing – go here **http://forum(dot)fanfiction(dot)net/topic/66481/20624122/1/

**Let me know what you're thinking. You have no idea how rewarding the reviews for this particular story are. I love you guys pretty hard.**


	6. The End and the Beginning

**A/n: Sorry about the delay. Here is the last (I think) O/s. There is a lemon in this chapter.**

**Disclaimer: These are Stephenie's characters, not mine, though I do love them so.**

Jasper knew he was dreaming. He was in his old room of his first home - a place he was no longer welcome in real life - and so this had to be a dream. He stared at the posters of guitar legends and abstract paintings on the ceiling with a sense of déjà vu and wistfulness because the last time he had been here, he had been with -

The bed shifted beside him and Jasper turned his head automatically. "Alice..." he said, and his dream self was not surprised to see her there, though his heart clenched and soared at the same time. There was a nagging confusion in him because he didn't know how to feel about waking in bed with one wife when he'd gone to sleep with his arms wrapped around another.

She stretched lazily, just like he remembered her doing the countless times he'd woken to find her next to him. He marveled at her beauty – still surreal to him after all these years – and soaked in her peaceful expression. The love in her eyes as she turned to him was obvious – just as it had been right before she died. Her face and body, what he could see of it, was unblemished. It was as if the brutal assault that had killed her had never happened.

His arm stretched out automatically to stroke her cheek, as he had frequently done when they'd woken slowly, blinking and smiling at each other in the early morning sunlight. Jasper froze in shock when he realized his arm was different. He twisted it around; as if unsure it was actually attached to his body. His skin was completely free of the scars and tattoos- the constant visual reminder of the beating he'd taken and the long reaching consequences of that night.

He jumped when her hand reached out and her willowy fingers wrapped around his wrist. His eyes drifted back to hers uncertainly. "This is a dream," he murmured, more to himself than to her.

She smiled and answered anyway. "Of course it is."

Before he could even wonder aloud why he would be dreaming like this, she answered his unspoken question. "Some believe that the purpose of dreams is to work out things subconsciously that you haven't been able to in real life."

His voice was soft and non-accusatory when he replied. "Then what are you doing here?" One thing he knew for certain was that he had nothing to work out when it came to Alice. There was no doubt in his mind that she had been his soul mate and he had lost her. It was a simple story he never questioned. Therefore, whatever his mind was trying to work out was not directly related to her.

A slow smile spread across her face, like he remembered it had when she was really pleased. "I'm just your spirit guide, young Skywalker," she intoned playfully.

He chuckled. "Obi-Wan Kenobi was not a spirit guide. He was just a spirit."

She fixed him with a pointed stare. "Who guided Luke."

They laughed together before seriousness settled over them again. He reached out to touch her cheek and was taken aback, again, that he could. He used to think that her skin was as soft as rose petals, but at her funeral he'd plucked a single petal from one of the showers of roses that were draped over her metallic, soft pink coffin. He'd held it between his fingers and found that even that tiny void could not be filled, even for a moment.

The only thing that felt like Alice's skin was Alice's skin.

He banished that thought as quick as it came. It had been tiny thoughts like that which had driven him to the brink of madness and depravity before. He was stronger now, with Bella to support him if he fell, but being a husband and a father also meant protecting yourself when you could.

Alice moved her hand to cup his scruffy cheek, her thumb stroking him right behind his ear. He sighed contentedly because he had missed this. "So, guide me," he murmured. "What is it that I'm supposed to be working out?"

Her eyes darted around the room. "Do you know where we are?"

At that, his throat became a little tighter. Automatically, he tried to hide the pain in his voice. "My room in my mother's house." His room since his mother moved them there when he was fifteen years old. He had moved out at nineteen to go to college, but he had been back every summer and every break - two of those years he had brought Alice home with him. In the two years they were married, after college and before Alice's death, they had stayed in this room every time they had visited his family.

From every conversation he'd had with his mother since his release from prison, it was a room he probably would never see again outside of his dreams.

She moved her hand down to stroke the hair at the back of his neck, soothing him; knowing he had made the connection. "There's no magic combination of words you can tell her to get her to listen to you," Alice said of his mother's consistent rejection.

When he spoke again his voice was pained. "Is that what you want me to realize? That it's useless?"

"Ultimately, you can't make her change her mind if it doesn't want to be changed," Alice said plainly. "Although, I have trouble believing that Mama Maria will stay mad at you forever."

Jasper had to smile then at a memory of Alice kissing his mother on her cheek and greeting her with a, _"Good morning Mama Ma."_

"Why do you need her back so much? I mean, I understand that you would want her back - she's your mother. But want and need are two different things," Alice asked.

"Masen should have his grandmother in his life," Jasper said, but it sounded perfunctory even to his own ears.

Alice tilted her head at him. "What is it that you used to tell me about my parents? 'Doll, don't you worry about them. If they can't see what they're missing having a bright star like you in their universe, then they're hardly worth thinking about at all.'" She imitated his soft drawl perfectly.

"You were a child when they abandoned you," Jasper retorted softly. "Can you imagine doing something so terrible that you could shut a mother's love off?"

"You can't shut a real mother's love off. Mama Maria still loves you, baby. Nothing could break that. Mothers, however, are people, and capable of making mistakes. You need to let her realize what she's missing by holding onto her hurt." She smiled again, an adoring smile that was not for him. "When she realizes how much of your son's life she's missing, she'll come around."

Jasper sighed, leaning forward so that their foreheads were touching. "I hate that my mistakes are robbing Masen of his chance to know his grandmother."

"No one is doing that but her, baby. Let this be one of her regrets, not yours." She grinned, running her nose along his affectionately. "Your son is amazing, you know."

"He is," Jasper agreed readily. Then he paused before asking the next question. "Bella said that you knew about him before we did." It should have felt wrong or off to talk to his dead wife about a conversation that his current wife had had with her dead husband, but, oddly, it didn't.

"It's the whole reason babies exist - the primal instinct to survive. There's nothing more reaffirming than creating life." She smiled at him. "Hell, I look at that little boy and I feel alive - just seeing you in his eyes."

Jasper's smile was wistful, momentarily wondering what a child of his and Alice's would have been like. "We talked about not having kids, you and I. It made sense."

"It made sense to a young philosophy major and a happy-go-lucky free spirit who had never really been faced with some of the harsher realities of our world." Her smile was smaller, her eyes slightly pained, but still adoring when they looked at him. "We'll never know if we would have changed our minds. We'll never know the people we would have become."

His hands tightened slightly, the pain of the memories of how she died ripping through him were momentarily too much. "Alice, I'm so sorry. I should have been strong enough to...you should never have had to suffer like that."

Her eyes narrowed. "Jasper Whitlock, you know damn well that there's nothing at all you have to apologize to me for," she said slowly, watching him to make sure each word sank in. She screwed up one side of her mouth as she thought over her next words- they were not easy to say. "You know, the minute we stepped into that alley, the future was set. We were never meant to make it out of there alive. What I did was selfish. I couldn't stand to watch you die, so I provoked them. I did it knowing what you would be forced to see." She winced, her eyes dropping from his in shame.

Jasper closed his eyes. He felt tears well and fight their way past his eyelids. "Please, please don't apologize for that, Alice. You know it wasn't your fault."

He felt her fingers brushing his tears away and he opened his eyes again. "I don't regret it," she assured him. "All things considered - since neither of us had a choice in what happened to us, finding Bella and Edward was something I can't regret." She smiled at him again. "And Masen, of course."

"You do love them, don't you?" Jasper asked wonderingly.

"I do. If we'd known each other before, I can see exactly what would have happened. We'd have been friends. More than friends - we would have been as close as brothers and sisters. We'd have spoiled their children rotten. We all would have grown old together." She laughed at her own musing. "Maybe...in another life..." she trailed off and gave a small shrug.

"Do they have that? Is that...true? Reincarnation, I mean," Jasper asked, curious.

Her eyes sparkled with humor when she answered. "That's for me to know and you to find out. Don't worry. I won't come back as your daughter."

Jasper raised his eyebrows. "I'm going to have a daughter?"

"Not tomorrow," Alice quipped.

He chuckled and Alice watched him with knowing eyes. "You've gotten us off subject, as, I assume, was your plan." Her eyes told him that she knew he was deflecting - not telling her everything about his mother. "We have a little time, you have questions."

He ran his fingers over her face. "You can still read me so well."

"Of course," she chided. "My Jasper and Bella's Jasper are not so different, you know. Some things never change." She sighed at him. "You're stubborn about admitting what you feel. I think you know I've never left you. When you're ready to talk - to me and to your Bella - I will be there," she promised.

He stroked her cheek, needing to say so many things but not being able to form the words yet. He took the out she'd given him. "Why did you come to me like this when Edward came to Bella while she was awake?"

"That was an accident on his part." Alice rolled her eyes. "He never listens to me! I told him he was going to get caught and that doesn't always go well." She laughed. "I should have known Bella could handle it."

"She can handle anything," Jasper said, the pride and adoration in his voice evident as he talked about Bella. Then he sighed again, the surreal atmosphere of the moment catching up to him. He looked around his childhood room in his mother's home that he had little hope he would see again, and back to his first wife, who he vividly remembered interring in the earth, with whom he was discussing his beloved second wife and _her _dead first husband.

Jasper resisted the urge to rub his head.

"I feel like...I've lived two lives. Bella feels that way too, that there was her life with Edward and her life with me. But her life with Edward is all around us. His family is her family. I hear stories about him and them all the time. Masen will grow up with that - knowing both sides of his mother, and knowing about Edward," he explained. "Momma is the only link I have with my old life - and the only person left who knew you."

He stroked her cheek, his eyes full of a sadness that was not quite regret and not quite wistful either. "When I moved us here, away from my family, I didn't know we wouldn't have the time to make friends...for someone to know you, other than me."

The look she gave him was soft, and they both let go of their old dreams once and for all. "Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans."

Jasper's smile quirked and his heart felt fuller somehow. "Bella says that all the time."

"I know," Alice grinned. Then her eyes swept over him as if she was memorizing him. "It's time to wake up, baby. So I'll leave you with advice from a different Beatle." She moved forward, kissing his forehead and then his cheek before putting her lips at his ear. "For though they may be parted there is still a chance that they will see, there will be an answer. Let it be." Her voice, as it always did, sounded breathy and distinctly sweet. His heart ached painfully, remembering all the times she sang snippets of songs into his ear. He closed his eyes and held her to him tightly, knowing he was about to lose her voice and her softness again.

"Jasper?" said a sleepy, disoriented voice that was not Alice. Jasper let out a shaky breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He realized it was Bella he was holding against his body too tightly. He opened his eyes, finding himself in his bedroom with his wife - in his second life. She blinked as she woke and her hands automatically went to his face, tracing different patterns than Alice's had. "What's wrong?"

He said nothing at first, burying his head in her hair, his nose against her neck as he took deep breaths, reorienting himself. He was in his own bed, where he was welcomed and wanted, in his own room, reflecting the man he currently was, in his own house. His baby boy was asleep down the hall and Bella, the other half of his heart, was in his arms, while he knew Alice, the other half of his soul, watched over all of them.

"Jasper?" Bella whispered again, her fingers running across his scalp soothingly.

"I was dreaming," he explained, his lips vibrating where her shoulder met her neck. Inhaling the scent of her skin once more, Jasper raised his head so he could look at her. Bella's brown eyes were droopy with sleep, but soft in their tenderness as she continued to stroke his hair, and deep with her concern for his anxiety. He curled her body closer to his, hitching one leg up and around hers so that they were tangled together completely. "It wasn't bad," he assured her.

She pursed her lips and moved her hands to frame his face, looking him in the eye to gauge if he was being completely truthful. He looked back at her evenly, his hands skimming up and down her back until she spoke again. "It's early yet," she murmured, her voice scratchy. "Can you sleep?"

"Mmm," he assented, kissing the tip of her nose tenderly. "I think so."

She must have been tired because she took him for his word, almost immediately snuggling into his arms and drifting off again.

Jasper sighed softly to himself, watching Bella's face as she slept. She was a wonder. If it was only her he had in his life he would have been the luckiest man in the world - and she had given him a loving family and a beautiful, healthy son. It was more than many would ever have. It should be enough.

Bella sighed in her sleep, as if in frustration with him, and he had to smile. He carefully disentangled himself from his wife. Once she was free, Bella rolled away from him onto her belly so she could snuggle her pillow instead. He smiled affectionately, wishing he didn't feel the need to reconcile the two lives he'd lived. He rolled into a sitting position, his feet flat on the hardwood floor of their bedroom, tapping restlessly.

He wondered if it was harder to be on Bella's end of their unique existence. She still had her family, and Edward's. The drawback to this was that they often did not understand the wholly different person she had become in order to survive Edward's death at all. They understood that Jasper had brought the light back to her eyes, but they did not understand the more subtle things about her persona that had been buried with Edward, though she had been forced to remain behind in body. They did not understand when she didn't laugh at the jokes she would have laughed at before, or that she had lost her passion for music. She had told him once that she always felt just a tiny bit off - like a painting you tried to hang straight, but the more you stared at it, the more you realized it was skewed just that littlest amount - but it was that fraction of an inch that drove you mad and got under your skin.

On the other hand, Jasper had a clean slate, so to speak. There was no one left that had expectations of how he should act. After Alice had died, he'd pushed everyone away. Being sent to prison for murder had discouraged even the most persistent of his friends and his mother....

Jasper ran his hand over his face tiredly, trying hard not to think about it.

The monitor on the nightstand crackled emitting Masen's baby gibberish. Bella stirred and groaned, furrowing deeper into her pillows. Jasper couldn't help but chuckle. "I've got him," he murmured, caressing her hair gently. She made a contented noise and promptly fell asleep again. Jasper smiled down at her sleeping form, adoring and enamored.

Jasper stretched as he stood, feeling and hearing the bones of his arms and back crack satisfyingly. He strode out into the hallway toward his son's nursery, ruffling his hair sleepily as he walked.

Masen was standing in his crib, holding onto bars with both of his little fists. When he saw his father he started to chant, rocking back and forth on his feet. "Da-dee, da-dee, da-dee."

"Mas-en, Mas-en, Mas-en," Jasper chanted back. He swung his little boy up into his arms, pressing a kiss to his cheek. Masen completed the ritual, giving Jasper's cheek a wet kiss. _Monkey see, monkey do_, Jasper thought fondly. He laid the baby down on the changing table, expertly unsnapping snaps. "So, your first year on the planet, Little Man. What's the verdict?" he asked.

Masen just grinned and giggled at something or nothing. In between titters, he put his pudgy hands over his eyes, as if he were playing peek-a-boo with the dust mites. Tilting his head, Jasper smiled down at his son, thinking the things that parents are prone to thinking about his baby not being a baby anymore and how quickly time flew. He was standing and toddling a few steps at a time. He spoke in mostly baby babble, but the words were slipping out. Soon he would be capable of full fledged conversation.  
Jasper's smile faltered.

He sighed quietly to himself as he picked Masen up off the changing table, holding him close. "Too soon we'll have _too_ much to talk about, baby boy," Jasper whispered. Masen looked at him curiously but only laid his head against his father's chest, rubbing at his eyes sleepily. Jasper smiled again, a gentle smile, and went to sit in the rocking chair by the window. "Well, there's still a little time to sleep before we have to be at grandma's house."

He began rocking and Masen's eyes started to droop, leaving Jasper without the distraction of deciphering his words. He was brooding, he knew, about how "grandma's house" might only ever mean Esme Cullen's house. Bella's own mother was friendly but distant, and, of course, his mother....

Jasper hummed softly to his son to keep from growling in frustration.

As he rocked and sang, he turned Alice's words over in his head. Her advice - let it be - went against everything in his nature. _"You'd make a good soldier, sugar," _his mother had told him more than once in his childhood.

Jasper had never been a 'let it be' kind of person. He was more of a 'hold strategic meetings, plan carefully and execute his mission with perfect precision' type of person.

Calling it a draw, or worse, a failure, was adding insult to injury when it came to his mother.

It was a war that he had started, so he knew he couldn't complain.

He had started it right after Alice had died. He'd awoken in the hospital, covered in bandages and bruises, but none of them could cover the gaping wound where half of his soul had been forcibly torn out of his body. Maria Whitlock had been there, teary eyed and heartbroken over the loss of her daughter-in-law and the pain she could not spare her son. She'd tried to talk to him but he'd just stared at the ceiling.

For weeks, that was his standard response whenever anyone tried to talk to him - blank, vacant stares. Inside he was slowly dying. It was not even agony, it was like rotting. Whatever was inside of him was not being destroyed; it was being warped into something dark - curdled, ugly and black.

Then he'd driven the last nail into his previous life's coffin by putting two men in theirs.

Maria had not understood. She had raised him to turn the other cheek, be the bigger man - all of those things that it was nearly impossible to do when you had been forced to see the things that Jasper had seen. She tried, though. She tried to support him. She went to his trial.

When she learned of the things her precious boy had done - the way he had killed the men responsible for Alice's death, Maria had broken down in tears. Jasper hadn't ever seen his mother cry like that. She was a strong woman, raising him mostly by herself after his father died. If he'd had anything left of his heart it would have broken seeing her despair over what her child had turned into. _Please. Jasper, explain this to me. Make this make sense, _she had begged him, literally on her knees. _I want to understand. Please, help me understand._

Jasper held his sleeping son close to him, taking what solace he could in Masen's reassuring weight in his arms and his tiny, warm breaths against his skin. His heart, restored back to a healthy pink state, was perfectly capable of the emotion he'd shut off then. Back then, as he was being led away, he'd merely looked at her with dead eyes. _"There's nothing to understand."_ In his memory, his voice was lifeless - completely devoid of any emotion. _"Forget I exist. Go back to Lucy and let her forget she had a brother. You're both better off without me."_ He had let the guards lead him away then, in handcuffs. He had not looked back. His mother's sobs had echoed behind him.

It wasn't until Bella had found him and they had started to heal the jagged pieces of their broken souls together, that Jasper had really felt the loss of his freedom. Before, prison had not been a pain or a trial. When your life has already been razed to ashes and cinder, high stone walls and iron bars were merely a formality. Bella had been like the buds of grass peaking their way out of the charred earth - green springing from black, life springing from death.

Prison became the source of his pain, rather than simply being the place where his body was kept.

As the light inside him relit, it brought back all the things that he had missed; all the things that mattered in life. Alice's loss had eclipsed everything. After Bella, he had started to miss his mother and his little sister Lucy, who had been five when Alice was murdered.

He had wanted to share his rebirth with someone who was there to witness his fiery death. He had received Charlie and the Cullen's words of thanks, and their assurance that he had brought Bella back to life. It had filled his chest with a sense of pride and purpose that had been missing from him for so long. He wanted the same for Bella.

And, of course, in every grown man there existed the little boys they had been. Little boys loved their mothers, and he was no different. He wanted his mother back.

After what he had said to her, he didn't know how to make it right. He'd often picked up the phone during the time he was allowed a phone call, only to set it back in its cradle or call Bella instead. He'd started so many letters only to crumple them between frustrated fingers.

Finding out about Masen had finally put an end to all of his excuses.

_The day after he and Bella had found out that they were pregnant, Bella was out running errands and Jasper was home alone. He was grinning like an idiot, and he knew it, but he couldn't seem to stop._

_But though the idea of the new life forming in his wife's belly made him joyous and proud, there was worry around the edges. Already, he wanted everything for his baby. He would do anything for the boy or girl that he would hold in his arms in just a few months time._

_That included overcoming his fear at his mother's rejection._

_Wielding the ultrasound photo they had obtained the day previous like a talisman for good luck, Jasper had dialed._

_"Hello?"_

_He hadn't realized exactly how much he missed his mother until she answered the phone. It hit him so powerfully that he couldn't speak for a moment - his heart jammed up in his throat, constricting his airways and making it difficult to breathe._

_"Hello?" she asked again, sounding annoyed._

_Not wanting her to hang up, he had said, "Momma," in an oddly strangled tone._

_Now the pause was on the other end of the phone. "Jasper?" Her voice sounded curious, and Jasper momentarily felt hopeful._

_His heart started to pound erratically. "Uh. Yea. It's me."_

_Another pause. Then, "What do you want?"_

_The coldness of her tone was like a knife twisting his chest into knots the way you might twirl pasta around a fork. "I...uh. I," he stuttered. "I'm out."_

_"Out?"_

_"Of prison," he mumbled._

_There was another awkward pause. "Why are you calling me?"_

_Dread had become his primary emotion, his insides twisting painfully with her words and the coldness of her tone. "There's a lot...to talk about," he tried to find the right words, but she cut him off._

_"Why would I be interested in a criminal's life?" she had asked, her tone finally betraying some emotion - anger._

_He closed his eyes, sounding lost when he spoke the next words. "Mom...I'm your son."_

_"No. My son is dead," she said harshly. "My son would not have done the things you did. My son would not have told me to forget about him. I've done my best to forget that _you _exist, just like you asked."_

_Then there was a click and the silence that reigned the house was deafening._

He had tried again a few weeks later, after finding out they were having a boy. This time, his stepfather had answered. When he had asked for his mother, he was summarily denied.

_"Don't you call here again. You stay away from my family," the man he'd lived with for a year before going off to college said._

_"Wait!" Jasper pleaded. "I just want her to know. She's going to be a grandmother. Will you please tell her that?"_

_There was a brief pause on the other end. "Monsters shouldn't be allowed to procreate," his stepfather said before he, too, hung up on Jasper._

It was the third time that Jasper called that Bella caught him.

_"You were told not to call here," his mother said when she picked up the phone._

_"Did he tell you what I asked him to? Did he tell you about my son?" Jasper said quickly, expecting that she would hang up again._

_There was a slight pause._

_"Look," he rushed on, "I just thought that...maybe you'd want to know about your grandson, and my wife."_

_She'd laughed a hard, bitter laugh. "I don't want to know about the kind of trash who would marry a convict."_

_His anger got the better of him then. He deserved his mother's coldness. Bella did not. "Don't talk about her like that. You have no idea -,"_

_"And I don't want to know." There was another click, and Jasper stopped himself from hurling the phone across the room. When he turned around, Bella was standing there.  
_  
She had heard his stilted half of the conversation and had put two and two together that Mama Whitlock was angry at her son. She confronted him and he confessed, telling her of the last three conversations he'd had with his mother. Bella surprised him by being livid. She demanded to speak to her mother-in-law. Even at eight months hugely pregnant, the fire in her eyes and the cross of her arms made her look intimidating. He loved the way she wanted to protect him, but the consequences of his own mistakes were not something she could shield him from.

_"Darlin', this is one battle you have to let me fight on my own."_

_"She's your mother, Jasper. She's supposed to love without conditions. I hate that she's making you feel this way when you didn't do anything wrong."_

_Jasper had raised his eyes to meet his wife's, reading the absolute conviction in her words. He would have liked to believe the words she spoke were true. He would have liked to have let the way she looked on him absolve him of his guilt. He sighed, placing both of his hands on her distended belly. Impending fatherhood did many things, not the least of which was that it made a man question what his own actions and hypocrisies and the message they might send to the impressionable mind that they now had a responsibility to mold. She had placed her hands over his, giving him the courage to put words to his thoughts. "Bella, what I did was wrong and we both know it. One day I'm going to have to tell Masen what types of atrocities his father is capable of. There's no part of me that's looking forward to that day. I feel like I've already failed as a father, having to teach my son how to be civilized when I was not. My mother raised me better than that, so I understand why she's doing what she's doing. It's my fault and my fault alone. When it comes time for me to talk to Masen... Jesus, Bella I can't imagine how I'm going to get through that without you. But right now, my mother and her disappointment in me is only my responsibility." _

A hand on his arm brought Jasper back to the present. He had fallen asleep in the rocking chair, his son held tightly against his chest. He opened his eyes to find Bella standing over him, a gentle smile playing at her lips as she watched her sleeping boys. "Hey. I hated to wake you, but it's time to get ready," she said quietly.

He stood carefully, kissing the top of Masen's curly, deep brown hair before handing the sleeping baby over into the safety of Bella's arms. A silent look passed between them over their son's head. She could tell that something was wrong, despite his reassurances earlier. He leaned in and kissed her - a silent reminder that she was all he really needed and a promise that he would tell her later wrapped up in one gesture. Then he had left Masen's nursery, heading for the shower.

A couple of hours later they were at the Cullen's beautiful home, surrounded by friends and family.

It was always amazing, to Jasper, how very alive Edward's presence was - particularly in this house.

"Whoa, there, munchkin!" Emmett had grabbed his daughter, Tatania, just as she was about to climb on the baby grand piano that sat in the Cullen's living room. "That was your Uncle Edward's piano and I'm pretty sure he'd be very grumpy if he knew you were using it as a jungle gym."

"Play it, Daddy!" she gleefully requested.

"I really don't know how to play, Baby Bear," he said, grinning at his daughter. Then he looked thoughtful and sat down on the bench uncertainly, almost as if he expected Edward to come around the corner and shoo him away at any second. "Well, Uncle Edward did teach me one thing."

He played Chopsticks for his daughter as the rest of the gathered guests looked on. Masen, in Carlisle's arms, pointed at the piano, a serious look on his face and his adopted grandfather brought him closer to the instrument indulgently. The smiles on everyone's face as Masen sat on Emmett's lap and plucked at the keys curiously were enormous - and a little teary, on Esme's part especially.

There was a quiet ache in Jasper's heart that cried out for a similar haven filled and alive with Alice's memory, but he had none. He didn't know if it was selfish to want his son to know more about the woman that had been his entire life, but it didn't change the fact that he wanted it.

He tried to keep the grimace off his face as his mind automatically strayed to his mother. His analytical brain leapt into old habits, turning over her words and their stinted conversations, trying to figure out a different way to come at this particular problem and overcome this obstacle.

Though he tried to push these thoughts away and reconcile himself with the fact that he did not have the power to change his mother's mind, Jasper could not seem to let them go. What was worse was that he kept everything from Bella - his dream, his worry about Alice's fading presence in their lives, and his hurt pride at the thought of forfeiting the battle.

The thoughts continued to plague him for over a week. He knew that Bella knew something was wrong. She would give him long looks when he got distracted and he could see the worry written on her face. However, she knew him well enough to know that he would come to her when he was ready.

He was, as usual, wrapped up in his thoughts when he returned home from work one day. It took him unforgivably long to notice that the house was quieter than it should have been. Typically, he would hear the sounds of Masen playing or Bella as she moved about - on the phone talking to one of the countless charities she was involved in or playing with Masen or generally being busy. The sounds of silence made him uneasy. Unbidden, his mind conjured a variety of nightmares that might have befallen his family. Images flashed through his head of Bella and the baby – hurt, or kidnapped or…

Dead.

He shook his head, trying to dispel the image and the resulting panic it caused. He was always nervous when he couldn't see or hear Bella and Masen. Logically, he knew they were fine.

He did allow himself to move faster, practically jogging through the house. He found the master bedroom empty. Then Masen's room empty. His heart started to pound faster. He passed the living room.

It was there that he found his family. Bella was lying on the couch, sound asleep. One arm drooped to the floor but her other hand was firm on Masen's back as he clung to her chest. He was also asleep.

He leaned against the wall, relieved. As he watched them sleep, he let the love he had for them both consume him and warm him, chasing away all the remaining paranoia that his unconscious mind had drudged up. The tenderness he felt for them both was deep. It made his heart full to the point of aching. Quiet moments like these, Jasper felt like he could weep with the power of what his life had become.

_He remembered the darkest moment of his life with vivid clarity. After hearing the screams and the pleas of two of the men who had taken Alice's life – he had just taken theirs. Looking down at their broken bodies, he had waited to feel some kind of justice, some measure of relief. Instead he remembered how they had looked in the darkness of the ally; all smirks and sneers as he stood between them and Alice. The flame of anger and hurt and loss burned just as brightly. It had not dulled at all. _

_With no outlet left, Jasper collapsed to his knees with a grief so painful he felt burned from the inside; every cell in his body screaming out his agony. He writhed upright with a fury so powerful he felt the brink of sanity clearly. He waited to go out of his mind, but he remained. It felt impossible but his brain did not snap. He wanted to sob into his hands but as he brought them up all he could see was the blood. He was filthy with it – covered. Impure. _

_His mind cried out for peace; he felt crazed and desperate for it. He had lived with the pain of being without Alice for too long as it was. His hands searched blindly for the gun he had brought. He had not granted Alice's murderers the mercy of a quick death, but he had believed in being prepared. His shaking hands found the gun. He pressed it to his temple._

_It was true – what they said about your life flashing before your eyes right before you died. He saw Alice. Alice smiling at him. Alice's sparkling eyes. Alice laughing. Alice. _

_He dropped the gun. He was already a murderer. He would not disappoint Alice further. He would not take his own life. _

Jasper came back to the present with a shake of his head. He felt a presence in the room – familiar and comforting. Alice. "Thank you," he whispered, knowing she had saved him then even as he had been unable to save her. He had come so close to ending his life that day – what he would have missed. A profound feeling of gratefulness spread over him, and he understood why people believed in God. This world was too small to contain the feeling of thanks that came over him – and the love he had for his family.

He walked the few steps to his sleeping family and carefully moved Bella's arm off of Masen. Thankfully, she did not stir. He lifted his sleeping son to his shoulder, rubbing his back to soothe him back into sound sleep. Masen's slight weight was an incredible comfort, and as he walked to the nursery, Jasper pressed a kiss against his son's soft forehead. He laid him down on his back in his crib, rubbing his belly in circles when Masen almost woke.

When he was sure that Masen would stay asleep, Jasper went back to the living room. He gathered Bella up in his arms and carried her to their bedroom. She didn't wake fully, but as he lay down beside her she shifted, nestling against him. He stroked her cheek, watching her as she slept.

After a moment, he decided to see how much of her he could kiss before she woke. He pulled the hand closest to him to his lips, kissing each one of her soft fingers. He remembered the first time she had touched him…her soft fingers over his rough hands. He kissed her palm.

When his lips got to her wrist he paused, fingering the silver bracelet he'd gotten her for Christmas. He fingered each of the links that held a birthstone. His, hers, Edward's, Masen's, and….

There was a fifth stone, a fifth link. He turned the link over so he could see the stone.

It was a garnet. January. It was Alice's birthstone.

"She's part of us."

Jasper looked up to find Bella was awake and staring at him.

She was a vision. Her eyes were hooded with sleep and painfully deep with a tenderness for him. Her hair was wild, wisps of it falling across her face while more of it stuck to the pillow behind her, reminding him of the weeping willow trees of Texas with their natural beauty. Her lips, full and the perfect shade of red, quirked into a smile, enticing him.

His lips claimed hers softly at first as he leaned over her. His hand remained wrapped around her wrist, his fingers playing over the links on the bracelet.

He wondered if she had any idea what this meant to him.

The emotion that came over him then was fathomless. He could have wept at the beauty of the sentiment, because this was exactly what he'd needed. He needed a physical representation of Alice and her place in their life and Bella had given that to him in one gesture. He felt like he could compose songs, poetry; write entire novels of this emotion he felt at how lucky he was and how much he loved this woman.

Instead, he let the emotion run through him in the form of passion. It rolled through him like a white heat, all blinding brightness and aching skin. He wanted to consume her; pull her against him, into his bloodstream so they could be one person. He wanted to be inside her and wrapped around her.

Jasper's need drove his body as his kisses became rougher; more dominating. He shifted until he was on top of her, his body against hers, pressing her into the soft mattress and pillows as his lips ravaged hers. She moaned against his mouth, her free hand tangling in his hair.

He pulled back suddenly, kneeling between her legs. Bella let out a small mewl of protest and he grinned at her, eyes intense with his need. With his hands on either side of her, Jasper pulled Bella toward him, tugging her legs around his waist, her hot, over-clothed center against his similarly too-covered belly. His hands went under her shirt and pushed her bra out of the way of his questing fingers. She gasped as his hands cupped her breasts, her own hands resting lightly on his arms as he moved over her.

_More, _his body cried, and his hands obeyed. He removed his hands from under her shirt, intending to unbutton but becoming impatient and ripping the cloth keeping his eyes from her beautiful body. "Jasper!" she cried, her voice surprised and breathy.

He leaned down to claim her lips. "I'm sorry, darlin'. I got impatient," he apologized, not sorry at all.

Bella gave a short laugh and bit down slightly on his lower lip. "I didn't tell you to stop," she pointed out, one eyebrow arched when he raised his eyes to look at her.

He laughed, low and husky as he wrapped her in his arms. He adored this woman with a strength that frightened him at times. He lifted her as he sat back on his haunches, so she was wrapped around him and he was holding her up with his arms around her back. He buried his face at her neck, scraping the skin lightly with his teeth. He had decided that if he could not consume her whole, he would have her piece by delicious piece. With that in mind, he began to lick and bite his way down to the Promised Land of her perfect breasts.

As his lips, tongues and teeth worked over her, Bella arched helpfully against him, her head thrown back as she sighed and gasped. Her hands clung to his back, fingers digging into muscular flesh so hard that he was almost glad that her fingernails were worn down to the nub - nail biting being a nervous tick of hers.

When her nipples had been thoroughly licked and teased into painfully stiff peaks, her hands went to his chest, urgently working the buttons of his shirt. He had built the tension and pressure that ran like an electric current from her breasts straight down her center, ending with a pulse that beat rhythmically at her clit. With their bodies mashed so tightly together, she couldn't reach all of his shirt. When she ran out of buttons she brought her hands to his chin, urging his face up until he released the nipple he was suckling with an audible pop. "Want you," she breathed because he had robbed her of the ability to speak in full sentences. "Need you. Now."

Jasper growled, the sound as animalistic as he felt at that moment - his need for her primal. He loosened his hold on her so she fell back on the bed. "Yes, ma'am," he murmured, his voice sounding raw and in tune with his visceral actions.

He undid the remaining buttons of his shirt, tossing it to the side, his eyes not leaving hers. Her eyes were on him, drinking in his features with one look in the same way his tongue and mouth had partaken in hers just a few minutes previous. He unbuttoned his jeans, removing them and his underwear in the space of seconds, while Bella's hands worked her own clothes all the way off.

When they were both nude, the tension in the room seemed to shift. Primal and animalistic became sultry and intentional. The emotion between them was palpable, almost visual, like heat curling off the asphalt on a blistering day in Phoenix - hot enough to fry eggs on their flushed skin.

When he leaned over her again his lips were demanding - moving in tune with the soundless music that played between them. He claimed what he wanted even as he gave her lips what they sought. Bella's hand moved down his chest, tracing lines that sent delicious chills through his body, until her hands enveloped his length. She scooted down, not breaking their kiss, so that he was towering over her as her hands pumped him, urging him closer to her heat as her legs spread for him.

He was inside of her in the next second, working his way deep with fast, hard thrusts. She shifted her hips into his, in time with the tempo he set.

Their kiss broke minutes later, both their lips sore from their rough, overly zealous mouths. Jasper leaned back slightly so he could look in her eyes, and the emotions he saw on her face took his breath away.

With their eyes connected as they moved together, the intensity did not lessen. It did, however, take on a sweet edge. It was like the smell that washed over you when you stood on a beach and let the mist of the ocean's waves hit your face. It was the warmth of a perfect summer day, lying in the grass as the sun enveloped you with just the right amount of heat. It was the exhilaration of momentum and building speed when you raced down a steep hill on your bike the first time. It was the sound of his son's giggle or the weight of his tiny arms wrapped around his neck. It was Bella's voice in his ear and her presence at his side and in his life.

It was everything right in the world.

Her walls started to clench around him even as his cock began to pulse. He thrust into her tight warmth as she came, a long moan of pleasure emanating from the back of her throat. "Bella, oh Jesus," he panted, his own orgasm hitting him hard as he came inside of her.

Spent, he collapsed against her. He pressed tiny kisses against the side of her face as he shifted off of her and onto his side. Bella rolled onto her side with him, not wanting any distance between them anymore than he did. She returned his gentle kisses, moving her lips over the scruff on his chin.

Jasper enmeshed their fingers, bringing her hand up between them so he could see the bracelet again. He kissed her fingers and then the cool metal. "Thank you," he intimated, his eyes locked with hers.

She squeezed his fingers. "There's nothing to thank me for," she whispered back.

He chuffed a small laugh. "Bella, I have more to be thankful for than I could ever possibly express in one lifetime." He brushed her cheek tenderly with the pads of his fingers. "I think I lost sight of that, for a little while."

With her wrapped in his arms, anchoring him to this life and what he really needed from it, Jasper finally found the words to tell her about his struggles. She listened quietly, her little hands comforting him and giving him strength.

"I think it's a good idea," Bella said when he was done with his tale.

Jasper sighed. "I know."

"Jasper," she said softly, her hands framing his face. "You have paid enough for your actions - and you know as well as I do that there will be consequences in the future that we'll face together. It's time to let _that _part of your life go. I don't think you can do that as long as you continue to subject yourself to your mother's accusations."

She kissed him softly, reassuring him of her love as she continued. "I know it's not the same - but you know Alice will always be a part of our life. Whatever you need. Hell, if you want us to go to Paris and take in a fashion show, we'll do it." She smiled at him and he laughed quietly, as was her intention. "You've done enough. Leave the door open and let her come to you."

Masen's cries on the baby monitor interrupted them then and they both rose, tossing on clothes as they went.

Later that night, Jasper composed a letter to his mother. He told her everything he needed to - about how he thought his life was over after Alice had died. About the things he'd watched the five men do to Alice, and the unfathomable rage that had instilled a primal _need _in him to make them suffer even a fraction of what she had that night. He wrote about the emptiness afterward - the void that was worse than dying because there was no logical end to it. He wrote of how he'd had to feel nothing to keep from going out of his mind, and how sorry he was that he'd hurt her when he did it.

Putting it all down in words was hard, but Bella, as she had promised, was there by his side. When the words became almost impossible to commit to paper, she'd pulled him to her, holding him until the pain subsided and he could write again.

When he got to that part of his letter - about Bella and about learning to live again; about his son and how eternally grateful he was to get the chance to be a husband and a father; about the Cullen's and their acceptance of him as family - his smile was genuine.

He let her know that he was happy, hoping that the part of her that was always going to be his mother would find solace in that. He let her know that, though he was going to be silent, he was always here - a presence half a continent away with his door always open if she ever wanted to reconnect.

He added a family picture they'd taken recently and sealed the letter with a sad sense of closure. No, he may not have gotten the outcome he wanted, but it was far from a failure. He'd had the remarkable fortune to be loved by two incredible women. Alice was a part of him and always would be - and that was all the physical reminder of her influence that he needed.

***

**Three Months Later**

Masen giggled as Jasper launched him into the air and caught him again. "More! More, more, more," he cried out, his little fists pounding on his father's shoulder in excitement.

"Oh, god," Bella said, putting her hands over her eyes as Jasper launched their son higher into the air. "Do you have to throw him so high?!" she asked, only half joking.

"No! Up!" Masen protested as Jasper set him down on the blanket at his feet.

"Sorry, buddy," Jasper told his son. "It's Momma's turn."

"What?" Bella's eyes went wide, but before she could process his words, Jasper had thrown her over his shoulder. "Jasper! What are you doing!? Put me down!"

"What do you think, Mace? You think Momma makes a good helicopter?" Jasper asked his son, ignoring his wife's squirming protests.

"'Copter! Mama, 'copter," Masen agreed. He giggled, watching his mother scream as his father twirled them both around in crazy circles. "Mama, mama," he babbled between giggles.

"Momma," Jasper breathed, coming to a sudden stop. He set Bella down carefully, his eyes frozen on something by the street.

Bella followed his gaze, seeing he was locked in a stare with a woman. She was blond and petite, and eighteen years older than Jasper. Bella knew this because she took one look at the woman's eyes and facial features and knew she was Maria Whitlock – Jasper's mother.

A small weight knocked lightly against the backs of her legs and Bella looked down to see Masen had wrapped his arms around her. Of course, he was a little shy around strangers. He was looking at this woman he had never seen with pensive curiosity, two fingers in his mouth. Bella leaned down, gathering her son into her arms protectively. She gave Maria a hard look, not quite able to conceal her anger at the anguish this woman had put Jasper through in the last two years. Then she wrapped one arm around Jasper's waist, giving him a supportive squeeze. "We'll be inside when you're ready," she said into his ear.

He finally tore his gaze away from his mother long enough to give Bella a quick kiss. "Thank you," he murmured, promising her with his eyes that he was okay. Bella released him and walked into the house, Masen quiet as he looked over her shoulder at his father and the strange woman.

Jasper turned back to see that Maria's eyes were locked on his son's tiny form. When the door closed behind Bella, Maria took a sharp breath, as if she'd been holding it all that time. One tear, then another fell down her cheek and she wiped them away, keeping her hands on her cheeks as she turned to Jasper, though she didn't look at him. "He looks like you. I saw the picture, but...." She trailed off, momentarily unable to speak. She shook her head in her hands and Jasper wanted so badly to go to her, but he was frozen.

Maria seemed to realize that he wasn't going to speak first. With shaking hands she reached into the purse she held and took out an envelope. She sniffled and looked up at Jasper, finally meeting his eyes. "I had built up in my mind what I thought you looked like now. I pictured you with that look on your face... short hair...tattoos...not my baby boy," she said, her words cutting off into a strangled whisper at the end.

Jasper sucked in a breath, his tense body unfreezing as she spoke. Wordlessly, he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. "I have tattoos," he said stiffly, holding his arms out.

Maria nodded, slowly, her eyes not leaving his - not because she didn't want to look, but because all the blankness, the lifelessness that had frightened her before was missing. In its place was the boy, the _man _she knew as her son. He was obviously wary, and obviously hurt and uncertain, but he was most certainly the son she thought she had lost forever.

Her mouth started babbling, speaking before she could let the overwhelming emotions overtake her completely. "Your wife - she's nothing like I had imagined either. I don't know what I was expecting. Cracked-out, white trash maybe." She saw Jasper's fists clench and his eyes narrow and she held her hands out, pleadingly. "She's lovely." Her eyes flitted toward the closed door nervously.

Jasper took a deep breath. His emotions were all over the map and he didn't really trust himself to speak. However, his mother had obviously made a huge step. She'd come halfway across the country to see him. Surely, she hadn't done that just to reject him in person. He took a step toward her. "She saved me."

Maria inhaled a shaky breath, hope springing into her eyes. "I wanted to save you," she whispered. "I would have done anything to help you."

"There wasn't anything you could have done," Jasper said quietly, taking another step forward.

Another shaky breath. "I think I knew that. Maybe I should have tried...but you have to understand," she said, her voice fierce and eyes pleading with him. "You were here, and Lucy needed me. You wouldn't even look at me, much less talk to me." Her voice cracked and she was crying again.

The last bit of fear and trepidation crumbled, mere specks of dirt in the face of the mountain that was his love and his longing for his mother. He took the remaining steps toward her and pulled her into his embrace. Her hands went to his chest, gripping his shirt in her fists. He could feel her shaking against him with the strength of her sobs. "My boy. I'm so sorry. I just...I thought I had lost you forever, and when I heard your voice that first time.... I couldn't live through losing you again, Jasper. I just couldn't."

"I know," Jasper assured her, his voice hoarse with emotion.

They stood together for a long time, squeezing each other. A mother and son mending frayed, but never broken, bonds without words. They had both made the mistakes, but they were mistakes borne of them both doing what they could with what little they had after their lives had shattered so completely.

When their tears were spent, they stepped away from each other, but only enough so they could walk without tangling limbs. "Come on, Momma," Jasper said, tugging her arm. "I want you to meet my family."

The smile that spread over Maria's face then was wide and full of teeth - an exact mirror image of her son's.

Jasper led his mother into his home. As she always was, Bella was waiting for him - their son in her arms. Jasper wrapped one arm around her waist, pulling her to his side while the other arm wrapped around his mother, pulling her close as well. Maria lifted her hand to touch her grandson's cheek, tentatively, and Masen did not shy away from her, though he looked at her curiously.

Holding his past, his present and his future in his arms, Jasper wondered vaguely if any man had been as lucky as he was. It was true that he knew the pain of losing everything, but he also knew the glory of finding it all again.

**A/N: Wow so… wow. It's done. For real this time. I think. I guess I shouldn't promise that because I promised that last time and, five more o/S's later, here we are again.**

**A couple of things before I officially press complete on this journey.**

**Alice's Jasper, Edward's Bella and my other fic, We Don't Break, We Bend, were nominated/validated for Indie Awards. All my love to Bmango who I know nominated this fic. I can't tell you, though, I've tried, what that means to me. If you haven't checked out the amazing fics that don't get enough attention, you should seriously check them out.**

**For those of you who liked my Jasper/Bella interaction I am starting another fic soon called Love Will Lead Us that will have a lot of Jasper/Bella in it…however, I'm going to warn you now that I'm NOT killing off Edward or Alice again and I am a canon only kind of girl, so take that as you will. I'm really excited about the story and intend to start it as soon as I finish We Don't Break, We Bend – which only has 3 chapters left to go.**

**That being said, thank you to all of you who have taken this journey with me. It's been an amazing experience. All of your words of encouragement – and the fact that this fic has been rec'ed and talked about…I just… blargh. I get all tongue tied when I think about it.**

**To my girls.**

**CellaCullen who "forced" me to write/post this in the first place and continues to encourage all of my depravity and fill my days (and VERY early mornings) with too many plot bunnies and even more laughs.**

**Dizzygrl28 who is ever so patient with my insanity and whose love and support buoy me on a daily basis.**

**JadedandBoring whose words and notes guided me and whose encouragement reminded me why this story was so worth telling, even though it is SO far out of my comfort zone. She was one of two people to catch that Jasper's gift to Bella, the bracelet, was missing Alice's birthstone.**

**Seriously, without those three, this story would not exist. Much love, always.**

**EDIT: Omg I can't believe I forgot this. Shug, the amazing, talented beast, has made a banner for AJ, EB. It's in my profile and it's fucking gorgeous. Check it out!  
**

**Fuck, did I just write a page long author's note??! ::shakes head at self:: I promised myself that I wasn't gonna get all emo.**

**Again, your words mean the world to me so let me know what you're thinking. Please.**


	7. Mini Moment

**A/N: So I was cleaning out my gdocs when I came across this nugget that I had completely forgotten about. Dunno what it was doing just hanging around in my docs, so I thought I'd toss it out here just in case anyone else would like to read it.**

* * *

"Masen Brandon Whitlock!"

Jasper looked up from where he was trying to wrestle his newborn daughter, Annabelle Elise, into a onesie. He smirked to himself, wondering how much trouble his five year old son could have gotten into this early in the morning.

"Sorry, Mommy!" he heard his son chorus. Then there was the pitter patter of little feet and Masen appeared in the doorway to the nursery. He looked grumpy. He stomped across the room and flung himself down in the rocking chair, slumped with his arms skewed over the sides.

"What happened Mase?" Jasper asked, trying to hold back his grin at the pouty expression on his son's face.

Masen bit his lip, looking every bit his mother's child at that moment. "I was just playin' with my play-doh," he said finally.

"Hmm," Jasper looked at his son with a pointed expression. "What's the rest of the story?"

Masen squirmed under his father's bemused stare. "I was playin' on your bed."

No wonder Bella had yelled. They'd had this conversation a few weeks previous after the play-doh had gotten lost in the sheets and made a mess in the washing machine and dryer. "I thought I told you to let your mother sleep," Jasper said gently.

"You should tell her that," Masen grumbled, his eyes falling on the bundled baby Jasper had just tucked into his arms.

Again Jasper fought a smile. Masen was completely and totally enamored of his baby sister...most of the time. Still, he was prone to fits of jealousy and attention seeking. "Anna-bug is too little to understand directions," he explained, again, patiently.

"I'm little too!" Masen protested, curling himself up in the chair as if to demonstrate.

"Well, I suppose you're too little to help me make breakfast then," Jasper pretended to sigh.

"No! I'm a big kid!" In one of the mindbogglingly quick mood swings kids were prone to, the second Masen had dashed out into the hallway he had forgotten all about his sour mood.

"Daddy?" he asked as they walked down the hallway.

"Masen?" Jasper returned, settling his daughter on her back under her play set.

"Grammy Maria is your Mommy, right?"

Immediately, Jasper was wary. He had a feeling he knew where this was going. Frankly, it made him a hell of a lot more nervous than the but-how-did-the-baby-GET-in-Mommy's-tummy conversation they'd had 6 months ago. "Right," he answered his son.

"And Grammy Renee is Mommy's mommy?"

"Yes."

Masen paused, worrying his lip between his teeth again. "Then whose mommy is Grammy Esme?"

Bella had appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, her gentle eyes on her husband. She picked up her son, cuddling him to her as she sat at the kitchen table. "Masen," she began softly, "Our family is very, very special…"


End file.
